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Knowledge4Policy
Knowledge for policy
Supporting policy with scientific evidence

We mobilise people and resources to create, curate, make sense of and use knowledge to inform policymaking across Europe.

Key Insights | Webinar on Behavioural Insights & Policymaking with Michael Hallsworth (BIT)

Behavioural insights
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BI Webinar | Behavioural Insights & Policymaking with Michael Hallsworth (BIT)

Key Insights & Learnings

At the core of almost every policy problem lies one common denominator – human behaviour. To create policies that work, we need to understand their interplay with people’s perceptions, thinking and behaviour. For centuries, policymakers have relied on mostly implicit and often untested assumptions of strictly self-interested rational behaviour by all-knowing, iron-willed individuals (‘homo economicus’). Behavioural science, in contrast, utilises a varied set of methods to gather robust evidence on how humans actually behave.

Here is a concise, graphically aided write up of key insights and learnings we gained during the webinar. In it we also included references to relevant resources and further readings (including those raised during the webinar), as well as key learnings from the audience, if you want to take a deeper BI-dive.

If you want to learn more about the Behavioural Insights approach you can explore our K4P website. We also just published a concise, scientific write-up on behavioural policymaking at the European Commission – a great complementary reading to this webinar. What is more, if you are working for an EU institution, you can access the recording of this primer session with Michael via this EU Learn course.