Behavioural Insights Projects
Discover projects applying behavioural science to policy from around the world. Add your own projects, whether completed or still ongoing, to contribute knowledge on BI applications across different countries, policy areas, and topics of interest.

Number of BI projects:
0
Legend: Projects status
- Pre-registered project
- Completed project
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PROJECT SUMMARY
Text messages were delivered to parents of children from 3 to 5 years old enrolled in public preschools in Uruguay using a government mobile app. These messages targeted malleable factors producing students’ absences and sought to influence parent’s attitudes and beliefs about preschool attendance to increase children’s presence in the classroom.
IMPACT
Children in remote areas increased attendance by 1.5 days, suggesting an increase in cognitive development of 0.20 SD.…
The Program of Applied Research on Climate Action in Canada (PARCA Canada) combines behavioural science (BeSci) insights and methods with robust policy analysis to promote climate action. One of the main areas of focus involves the launch of a longitudinal survey that will, over time, collect data on research questions of interest to the promotion of climate action in Canada (e.g. transportation, home energy use, waste management, engagement with nature, preparedness for extreme weather,…
Challenge
Students in low-income districts are less likely to sign up to take the Gifted and Talented (G&T) admissions test than their peers in higher-income districts. As a result, fewer students from low-income districts test into and attend G&T programs that could improve educational outcomes and provide meaningful opportunities. To the extent that the city may use sign-up rates as an indicator of demand, and thus where additional G&T programs should be located, low sign-up rates can mean…
When firms in the UK do not follow the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) Rules or Principles, and consumers incur financial losses as a result, the FCA seeks to ensure customers receive adequate compensation, or redress. In 2011/12, the FCA helped obtain over £150 million worth of redress for consumers. Instances where consumers are due redress do not often receive publicity. Instead, the firm alerts customers to a potential issue, usually in the form of a letter that gives customers…
BI Project
Social Multipliers at Work: Improving Children’s Outcomes Through Aspirations and Role Models
Every year, governments spend large amounts
of resources on development programs that aim
to change poor households’ behaviors and attitudes
toward investment in the education, health, and
nutrition of their children as a way to end the cycle
of poverty. One key mechanism that can achieve this
is working to raise aspirations. But how do you do
that in practice?
In this project, together with Karen Macours of the
Paris School of Economics and the Ministry of Family
in Nicaragua, we find that…
Not all UWV clients who receive unemployment benefit post their CVs on werk.nl. This prevents them from being found or matched for a job. Would it help to send them a reminder to their personal Work Folder as well as a text message? Yes it would: this experiment shows that five times more clients are then prompted to put their CV online, compared to clients who are not sent a reminder.
Why this experiment was conducted: missing CVs
25% of jobseekers on unemployment benefit who are asked to post…
To promote college access and affordability, education tax credits help with the cost of college by reducing the amount of tax owed. The most generous Federal higher education tax credit, the American opportunity tax credit (AOTC), is a maximum annual credit of $2,500 per eligible student. Yet, many eligible students (or their families) do not claim the credit. Among eligible students, national estimates indicate that 46 percent of independent students and 56 percent of dependent students take…
Oxera and the Centre for Experimental Social Sciences (CESS) conducted a behavioural experiment on behalf of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to identify the effectiveness of certain summary cost metrics in aiding consumer selection of income drawdown products
PROJECT SUMMARY
Teachers in a summer school program for high school students provided brief, individualized, messages for parents with information about their child’s performance and behavior in school on a weekly basis.
IMPACT
Providing parents with individualized messages increased the probability a student earned credit for each class by 6.5 percentage points – a 41% reduction in failure rates.
The Ministry of Justice and Security developed a behavioural intervention aimed at inspiring individuals to adopt safe cyber practices: 'Valse email? Meld het via de meldknop' (Fake email? Report it using the report button). Thanks to this behavioural intervention, employees are ten times more likely to report suspicious emails internally. Moreover, click rates on links in suspicious emails have significantly decreased.
Why this experiment was conducted: One in five SMEs have been victims of…