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- 24th Jul 2015
Promoting diversity in the Police
Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting some of our recent trials. This first post is dedicated to an emerging area of focus for BIT: home affairs and justice. We occasionally get a result that even we are stunned by. One of these, picked up in the media…
- Blog
- 28th Jul 2015
Reducing college dropouts
In the last chapter of his latest book Misbehaving, Richard Thaler writes that education is an area ripe for the application of behavioural science and is already a “good example of a domain where field experiments run by economists are having an impact”. Like Richard, the BIT is excited by…
- Blog
- 31st Jul 2015
Improving outcomes for young people in Somerset
Today we are publishing our latest report which applies behavioural insights to schools in Somerset. This report is the culmination of a year of work conducted jointly with the Somerset Challenge, a collection of secondary schools in Somerset who are working together to improve outcomes for young people in the…
- Blog
- 4th Aug 2015
Reducing errors in medical decision-making
“Sarah, can you hear me?” The patient lies on the trolley, silent and grey. The doctor bends over her with growing concern. Now he feels no pulse, no breathing – and a once innocuous situation has slipped into crisis. Professional instinct takes over: with a pull of a lever, the…
- Blog
- 7th Aug 2015
"You have been selected": Driving uptake of Government schemes
In 2013 and 2014 BIT worked with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to design, launch and run the Growth Vouchers programme. After the scheme had launched the number of applications was lower than hoped. This is not an uncommon occurrence with Government schemes - lots of time and…
- Blog
- 11th Aug 2015
Behavioural Insights: The Next Generation
Junior academics and practitioners in the field of behavioural science are incredibly fortunate to benefit from the pioneering work of academics such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Cass Sunstein, Richard Thaler, Carol Dweck, Max Bazerman and Iris Bohnet, to name but a few. The work that these eminent figures have…
- Blog
- 14th Aug 2015
Encouraging charitable giving
In our Update Report, we reported a few new results in the area of charitable giving. Perhaps the most striking of these is the finding of our first “Network Nudge” experiment. In this experiment, we worked with an investment bank to encourage their staff to donate to charity. Instead of…
- Blog
- 19th Aug 2015
BIT is hiring researchers
We are looking for Associate Advisors to join our Research and Evaluation Team. The research and evaluation team works across the policy spectrum on randomised controlled trial design, intervention design, and evaluation. Candidates should have a strong social science background, ideally with some research experience or a good level of…
- Blog
- 21st Aug 2015
Inside the Nudge Unit - out on 27th August!
Inside the Nudge Unit is David Halpern’s first-hand account of the Behavioural Insights Team (or Nudge Unit as we quickly became known). The book explores the results of the team as it set out to translate psychological theory and an experimental approach into everyday policy. What makes Inside the Nudge Unit different…
- Blog
- 28th Aug 2015
Inside the Nudge Unit was published this week.
Inside the Nudge Unit was published this week by WHAllen. I wanted to email out partly to say thanks to the many people who have contributed to the success of the team and the wider application of behavioural science and experimentation to policy. I also wanted to give you the headlines.in the…