Understanding human behaviour and how it shapes organisations, communities and societies is fundamental to addressing current and future global challenges.
The five-year funding will support BR-UK to build a behavioural research community to address these challenges, driving interdisciplinary innovation.
Professor Linda Bauld, Bruce and John Usher Chair of Public Health at The University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute and Chief Social Policy Advisor to the Scottish Government will co-lead the Hub along with Professor Susan Michie, Professor of Health Psychology and Director of the Centre for Behavioural Change at University College London.
Leading academics across a range of disciplines from eight universities – Edinburgh, UCL, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford, Queens University Belfast, Sheffield and St Andrews – will join forces with partners from government, charities, and industry.
The team includes TRL, which will be running real-world transport-based behavioural studies focused on understanding behaviour change and community resilience; the work will help TRL to meet its mission of creating clean, efficient transport that is safe, reliable and accessible.
The collaboration will provide leadership to harness, connect and extend the UK’s existing capacity and capability in behavioural research, supporting the mobilisation of research into policy and practice. BR-UK will support effective future policy-making, service delivery and innovation; including establishing a service to help research users draw on behavioural expertise to address challenges they face, including when environmental, political, health or social shocks occur.
The team have ambitious plans including setting up a fund to support exemplar projects to drive behavioural research advances. BR-UK will be underpinned by community involvement, equity and social justice, with systems thinking and the importance of context at its core.
The award is part of a larger £18 million investment in behavioural research from the ESRC which will include development and training opportunities for academics and practitioners from a wide range of sectors.
Dr Shaun Helman, Chief Scientist for Behavioural Science at TRL, welcomed this investment from the ESRC: “This work will build on decades of research to understand human behaviour, and TRL is delighted to be involved. Transport is a domain in which the choices people make can have major implications for carbon emissions, safety, and health. By applying our understanding of behavioural science to contexts like transport we will ensure that evidence is at the centre of real-world policy decisions. Our partnership of academics, policy makers, commercial and voluntary sector organisations across all four nations will work together to accelerate the use of such evidence to help address challenges facing us now and in the future.”
