Behavioural science has made a major impact on important issues over the past decade, such as antimicrobial resistance, educational attainment, and sustainability. But it’s also clear that applied behavioural science needs to evolve to fulfil its true potential. BIT has just published A Manifesto for Applying Behavioral Science - a landmark guide to the future of applied behavioral science. This Manifesto takes a clear-eyed look at challenges facing the field and offers 10 proposals to address them: Use behavioral science as a lens that can help us see all issues better, rather ..read more

UK Government data shows that the great majority of people are concerned about climate and supportive of Net Zero by 2050. However new research in BIT's new report 'How to build a Net Zero society' finds that most people find it hard to make more sustainable choices in their own lives, despite 9 in 10 wanting to do so. They want to see strong leadership from government and business to make green choices easier.  Moreover, these high levels of public support aren't just in the abstract - there are big majorities in favour of a whole host of specific policy recommendations, including many o ..read more

Inside The Nudge Unit is a podcast from The Behavioural Insights Team. In Episode 13 we talk to Dr Mark Friedberg and Rebecca Oran from the non-for-profit health insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts. Over the last two years, they have worked with BIT to create a successful Nudge Unit that has run around 60 interventions to improve health and healthcare. Many thousands of people have been reached by this work.  But how did they go about it? And what lessons does this work offer for other organisations who are looking to set up their own dedicated behavioural science functions? To f ..read more

In the second of a two-part climate change special, BIT’s Head of Energy & Sustainability, Toby Park, sits down with Cambridge University’s Professor Theresa Marteau, Moira Nicolson from the Cabinet Office and Valentine Quinio from the Centre for Cities to unpick three of the biggest areas we need to decarbonise to reach Net Zero by 2050: Food, Transport and Energy. We know we cannot achieve Net Zero without behaviour change - the question is, how we can make it happen and devise effective solutions to decarbonise the way we produce and eat food, the way we travel and the way we heat and p ..read more

In the first of a two-part climate change special, BIT’s Lis Costa sits down with Nobel Prize Winner Professor Richard Thaler, Cambridge University’s Lucia A. Reisch and BIT CEO and founder Professor David Halpern to answer one big question ahead of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference: Can we Nudge to Net Zero? According to the Paris Agreement’s: Sixth Carbon Budget, in order to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, a 63% reduction in future emissions is required over the next decade or so. This is no mean feat! Such reductions will require substantial changes to our behaviour including ..read more

On Christmas Eve December 2020, the World Health Organisation named Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and health inequities as 2 of the 10 global health threats to track in 2021. In 2019, we worked with the Health Quality and Safety Commission (HQSC) and PHARMAC to see how we can tackle both in Aotearoa New Zealand. The results of this work have just been published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, so we wanted to dedicate this episode of Inside the Nudge Unit to it.  Peer-reviewed articles allow us to present the rigorous work that goes into running a Behavioural Insights (BI) project. Ho ..read more

In this latest episode of Inside The Nudge Unit BIT’s Aisling Colclough and Lis Costa look at two more major areas of work by the team around the world. First they are joined by colleagues Dr Vera Newman and Monica Wills Silva to explore BIT projects in Australia and Latin America looking at the role behavioural insights can play in helping reduce sexual harassment and violence against women on university campuses and in the home. Secondly Nida Broughton and Ravi Dutta-Powell join Lis and Aisling to discuss their recent thought leadership work on how applying a behavioural and experimental len ..read more

In this episode of Inside The Nudge Unit, BIT’s Lis Costa and Aisling Colclough look at two major pieces of work by the team. Firstly there is a discussion with Carolina Toth from BIT’s New York office who has been working with mayors across the US on how to engage with people who are cautious or unwilling to get a COVID-19 vaccine when they become eligible. With many from the communities hardest hit by the virus in the US, there has been an urgent need for effective messaging to ensure broad acceptance and uptake of the vaccine. Carolina explains how the team set out to understand the issues ..read more

The second and final part of a very special episode of Inside the Nudge Unit, recorded to tie in with the recent 10 year anniversary of the Behavioural Insights Team. Join our CEO, Professor David Halpern, with the founders and pioneers of behavioural economics, Professor Richard Thaler, Professor Cass Sunstein and Google’s head behavioural scientist Dr Maya Shankar, discussing how ‘nudge’ has evolved over the last decade and where the science of human behaviour is headed next.  Richard Thaler is the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics a ..read more

Part 1 of a very special episode of Inside the Nudge Unit, recorded to tie in with the recent 10 year anniversary of the Behavioural Insights Team. Join our CEO, Professor David Halpern, with the founders and pioneers of behavioural economics, Professor Richard Thaler, Professor Cass Sunstein and Google’s head behavioural scientist Dr Maya Shankar, discussing how ‘nudge’ has evolved over the last decade and where the science of human behaviour is headed next.  Richard Thaler is the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of ..read more