Global: Behavioural Insights

2021 was yet another busy year at OPSI! As the rate and complexity of global challenges increases, so does our work. In cooperation with partners and counterparts, we complete another successful year of leveraging our expertise in global trends, public sector innovation systems, transformative technology and innovation skills, processes and methods. We held over 50 workshops, webinars and events Issued 13 reports Published 46 blogs And held hundreds meetings to drive the point home: that...

A summary report of the Government Beyond Recovery conference, which brought together over 2000 participants to reflect on the importance of innovation, co-creation, agile regulation and inclusion as the world emerges from a period of crisis and prepares for the complex challenges ahead.

Cash transfers, recognized as one of the most effective tools in social protection, are expanding rapidly into the world’s poorest economies. As these programs support more of the world’s most vulnerable populations, they face growing demands to increase their effectiveness. Light touch interventions from behavioral science help make programs more adaptive to the psychological phenomena that influence beneficiaries’ decisions and actions and improve outcomes at little additional cost.

Virtual Conference – Government Beyond Recovery: Towards a future-fit public sector: 18-19 October 2021 As we hurry to buy plane tickets to the next tropical destination or catch the latest James Bond movie in theatres, the sudden and dramatic restrictions we all experienced in early 2020 can feel like a distant memory. In the early days of COVID-19, many of us reflected critically on the things that mattered most in our lives and work; committing...

Governments have increasingly adopted remote work due to COVID19. So far, there has been no comparative assessment of how teleworking has affected the public sector. The People in Government Lab, together with an international team of researchers from 12 universities is running a study in Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and the United Kingdom to understand the organisational advantages of teleworking, and to evaluate how behavioural sciences can improve public employees’ wellbeing and performance

On May 11th 2021, OPSI hosted a workshop in partnership with the Austrian Federal Ministry for Civil Service and Sport on Enhancement-Oriented Innovation, as part of our ongoing work on the Innovation facets through our Horizon 2020 programme of research. Over 100 people representing 36 nationalities joined us to hear about  the relationships between innovation and public sector efficiency and productivity, as well as methods and tools…

Impact Canada is a whole-of-government effort that deploys outcomes-based policy and program approaches. It features a novel set of rules, processes, and supports to allow the Government of Canada to support innovative methods like challenges, pay-for-success funding, and behavioural insights, which previously faced significant barriers to adoption. Through these systems-level changes, the Government can now apply these approaches to produce better outcomes for citizens and create greater public

Mi Taxi, My Cab, part of Mexico City’s App, was created to boost trust in the public cab network by making the service safer. It provides information about the drivers and the cabs' public concessions. Users can rate the trip and activate a panic button connected to the City’s Intelligence Agency, C5. Negative perceptions of safety among the public lead the Government to grasp the situation faced by drivers and users, particularly women, and thus developed the initial phase of the app,…

Taking a course and a comprehensive driving test has not been a mandatory requirement to issue a driver's license in Mexico City and implementing such a system is not simple. The City is building institutional capabilities to effectively implement mandatory courses and tests to improve road safety. Meanwhile, SEMOVI has modified the issuing license form to nudge applicants into feeling co-responsible for road safety and refraining from driving if they deem themselves incapable of doing it…

Fotocívicas is a behaviourally inspired traffic control system that relies on educational and civic fines aiming to transform drivers’ behaviour by reducing recidivism and licensing effect among offenders. It sets out to change the previous system, which was based on monetary fines with cameras placed where drivers were more prone to speed, not where more fatalities happened, without improving behaviours or road safety