Our history

Established in 2010 within the UK government, we were the world’s first institution dedicated to incorporating a better understanding of human behaviour into public policy, programs and products. 

Our then seven-person team took a behavioural science approach to problems facing the country, like getting people to pay their taxes on time or helping them find employment. But we didn’t just assume that our ideas would work. We ran large-scale trials to empirically test their impact and shared the lessons widely.  

Over time, we created sector-leading methodologies and evidence-based results 

Through testing, we started to build up evidence of how behavioural science could work in many areas. What messages make people pay overdue taxes faster. How to help people burn out less at work and stay in their jobs. New ways of reducing needless antibiotic prescriptions. Peer-reviewed academic journals began – and continue to – publish our research. 

We developed cutting edge methodologies for applying behavioural principles to public policy and beyond. Methodologies we created, such as TESTS and the EAST framework, along with our own behavioural online experiment platform, Predictiv, are widely used and recognized in the field today.

Our behavioural approach was so effective, others replicated it

Similar teams started popping up in the public and private sector. Now, more than 200 behavioural units are operating worldwide. BIT’s team began to grow as well. Leading academics, sectoral experts and researchers were attracted by the practical power of our approach. To increase our positive social impact, we needed to expand.

In 2014, we became independent and international

BIT branched out of the UK government so that we could help solve even more challenges with behavioural science and evaluation. As an independent consultancy, we could work around the world and develop a wide range of expertise. 

We completed our first project outside of the UK in 2014 in Guatemala, where we helped increase tax compliance three-fold. Shortly after, we became a partner in a groundbreaking $42 million philanthropic initiative to bring rigorous evaluation to 50+ US cities.

Today, we do much more than nudge 

BIT is a global research and innovation consultancy with deep local expertise. We have more than 220 staff, and operate from seven offices around the world. Together we provide unrivalled behavioural science expertise, amassed through the delivery of more than 1,700 projects across hundreds of countries. Our reach extends well beyond ‘nudging’. 

Our academic affiliates are some of the world’s greatest minds, including Professor Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, and Theresa Marteau, director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at Cambridge University.

We also collaborate with many of the universities with major behavioural science programs, including Harvard University, Cambridge University, the National University of Singapore, Oxford University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Nesta is our strongest partner

In 2021, BIT was acquired by Nesta, an innovation charity. We are now part of the Nesta Group, and in London we share offices with Nesta’s 280 colleagues. We share a vision and purpose, coming together to design, test and scale solutions to society’s biggest challenges, and committing together to be world leaders in driving innovation for social good.