scholarly journals Behavioural Insights Team: ethical, professional and historical considerations

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIAM DELANEY
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Policy Agenda ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Behavioural Insights ◽  
Professional Codes

AbstractThe Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) has led in the promotion and adoption of behavioural science research in public policy. This comment addresses a number of issues that must be faced by BIT and the wider behavioural public policy agenda as the field becomes institutionalised and normalised within public policy internationally, in particular issues of ethics and professional codes.

scholarly journals Nudging transparent behavioural science and policy

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
OLIVIA M. MAYNARD ◽  
MARCUS R. MUNAFÒ
Keyword(s):  
Science Research ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Science And Policy ◽  
Behavioural Insights ◽  
Study Protocols ◽  
Research Transparency

AbstractThere are inherent differences in the priorities of academics and policy-makers. These pose unique challenges for teams such as the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT), which has positioned itself as an organisation conducting academically rigorous behavioural science research in policy settings. Here we outline the threats to research transparency and reproducibility that stem from working with policy-makers and other non-academic stakeholders. These threats affect how we perform, communicate, verify and evaluate research. Solutions that increase research transparency include pre-registering study protocols, making data open and publishing summaries of results. We suggest an incentive structure (a simple ‘nudge’) that rewards BIT's non-academic partners for engaging in these practices.

scholarly journals Moving beyond the obsession with nudging individual behaviour: Towards a broader understanding of Behavioural Public Policy

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 337-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Ewert
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Behavioural Change ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Behavioural Interventions ◽  
Regulatory Policies ◽  
Policy Paradigm ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Behavioural Insights ◽  
Under Construction

Behavioural interventions are much more than ‘just another policy tool’. Indeed, the use of behavioural science has the potential to lead to a wide-ranging reassessment of policymaking and public administration. However, Behavioural Public Policy remains a policy paradigm ‘under construction’. This paper seeks to contribute to this development process by investigating the conceptual features of advanced Behavioural Public Policy that go beyond the now familiar notion of nudging individual behavioural change. It thus seeks to provide more illumination in a debate which currently seems to have become stuck on the pro and cons of nudging citizens’ individual behaviours. In reality, Behavioural Public Policy should be seen as a pluralist, non-deterministic and multipurpose approach that allows the application of behavioural insights ‘throughout the policy process’ and in combination with regulatory policies. The paper’s line of argument unfolds in three steps. First, it explores the policy rationales that have driven nudge techniques and also summarises the conceptual, methodological, ethical and ideological criticisms that have made of it. In a second step, state-of-the-art Behavioural Public Policy, which claims to be more substantial and wide-ranging than today’s nudge techniques, is empirically examined through interviews conducted with global thinkers (academics and practitioners) in the field of behavioural insights. Finally, there is a discussion of whether advanced Behavioural Public Policy could be better suited to withstand the criticisms that have been directed at nudge techniques.

scholarly journals What are we forgetting?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
PELLE GULDBORG HANSEN
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
Behavioural Insights ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Main Driver ◽  
Diagnostic Approaches

AbstractDuring the last decade, the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) has been the main driver of establishing behavioural public policy as a novel approach in public policy. Adhering to a set of strategic principles, BIT has succeeded in translating insights from the behavioural science literature into policy interventions to show how behavioural science may be applied to public policy in a methodologically as well as economically efficient way. However, as Sanders, Snijders and Hallsworth (2018) note in their paper, the wide-ranging transformation of public policy development that many thought possible has remained absent. In this comment, I argue that this situation itself is due, at least partly, to the strategic principles adopted by BIT, and I call for developing more ‘diagnostic’ approaches, including better tools and models, to ensure that behavioural science is not perceived as offering merely technocratic tweaks.

Public Policy Agenda Adapts to Needs

ASHA Leader ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (15) ◽  
pp. 23-23
Author(s):  
George Lyons
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Agenda

2011 Public Policy Agenda

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Lesieur
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Agenda

scholarly journals Precincts and Prospects in the Use of Focus Groups in Social and Behavioral Science Research

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Sagoe
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Behavioral Science ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Group Method ◽  
Behavioural Science ◽  
Behavioral Science Research ◽  
Social And Behavioral Science ◽  
Focus Group Method ◽  
Practical Recommendations

Over the past few years, the focus group method has assumed a very important role as a method for collecting qualitative data in social and behavioural science research. This article elucidates theoretical and practical problems and prospects associated with the use of focus groups as a qualitative research method in social and behavioural science research. The core uses of focus groups in social and behavioural science research are discussed. In addition, the strengths and limitations of employing focus groups in social and behavioural science research are elucidated. Furthermore, the article discusses practical recommendations for strengthening the focus group method in social and behavioural science research.

The Determinants of Program Success and Failure

1981 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harold Wolman
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Cost Benefit Analysis ◽  
Evaluation Research ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Program Performance ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Program Success ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACTRecent social science research – particularly evaluation research and cost-benefit analysis – has produced a substantial and very useful literature on the impact of public policy and on the relationship of program inputs to outputs and outcomes. However, the explicit focus of these analytic techniques on impacts and outcomes does not systematically yield useful information on why programs have been successes or failures. Policy-makers faced with an evaluation of program success or failure obviously need to know something about the why question if they are to make needed adjustments in the program or carry the lessons of one program to other areas. This article attempts to present a comprehensive framework for explaining and understanding program performance. It is meant to have two uses and to serve two clienteles. First, it presents for social scientists a set of research questions to guide research into the determinants of program performance. Second, it provides public policy-makers with a set of action questions which should be asked and answered appropriately in the actual formulating and carrying out of public policy, as a means of enhancing the chances of program success. The framework is divided into two parts, the formulating process and the carrying out process, although these two processes may overlap considerably, both in time and in terms of substantive concerns. Program success may be impeded by problems or inadequacies in one or more of the components in either the formulating stage or the carrying out stage or in both.

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