- The University of Sheffield has been awarded a share of a £10 million from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to tackle societal and economic challenges
- Understanding human behaviour and how it shapes organisations, communities, and societies is fundamental to addressing current and future global challenges
- Leading academics from the University of Sheffield will work with researchers across a range of disciplines from eight universities, as well as partners from government, industries, and charities
Behavioural and computer scientists at the University of Sheffield have been awarded a share of £10 million provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to establish a leadership team for behavioural research in the UK (BR-UK). The team will drive interdisciplinary innovation in behavioural research to tackle societal and economic challenges over the next five years.
Academics at the University of Sheffield will co-lead a work stream on “Methods and Evidence Synthesis”, which aims to provide robust and reliable methods for analysing data on people’s behaviour. These methods, in combination with rapid reviews of evidence, should improve the basis on which decisions are made.
The Sheffield team will also co-lead a demonstration project, which will use ontologies (systems for defining concepts like different behaviours and their properties) to organise data and develop accessible, online tools for the effective analysis of behavioural data. This project will build on tools developed at the University of Sheffield as part of the TURBBO project, which are designed to help people understand how behaviours are related to each other. For example, if how much people sleep is associated with physical activity or - less intuitively - sustainable actions, like recycling.
The aim is to help researchers and practitioners move away from viewing behaviours in isolation (e.g., only studying physical activity) and consider ‘knock-on’ or spillover effects, which might also help to predict the outcomes of interventions (e.g., a campaign to improve sleep).
Understanding human behaviour and how it shapes organisations, communities, and societies is fundamental to addressing current and future global challenges, such as the 17 global goals described by the UN. The five-year funding will support BR-UK to build a behavioural research community to address these challenges and drive interdisciplinary innovation.
Leading academics across a range of disciplines from eight universities – Sheffield, Edinburgh, UCL, Cardiff, Manchester, Oxford, Queen’s University Belfast and St Andrews – will join forces with partners from government, industry, and charities. These include the Scottish and Welsh Governments, government departments, and agencies in Northern Ireland, and organisations covering transport, food security, health protection, communication, entrepreneurship and other areas.
Professor Thomas Webb, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Psychology, and lead of the Sheffield team, said: “Almost all societal grand challenges, whether concerning the environment, health, well-being, or the development of sustainable economic models, have at their heart a need for social and behavioural change.
“However, changing people's behaviour and deeply-rooted practices is difficult and requires interdisciplinary theoretical approaches and methodological innovation. For example, our research on the ostrich problem suggests that people have a tendency to bury their head in the sand and intentionally avoid information that would help them to monitor their progress toward important goals like staying active. However, prompting people to monitor progress, for example using an activity tracker, can support changes in behaviour.
“BR-UK is an ambitious initiative that capitalises on the breadth and depth of scientific expertise across the UK to develop these approaches, breed innovation, and tackle these challenges.
“It is great that academics at the University of Sheffield are part of the team leading behavioural research in the UK. It recognises the long legacy of behavioural science at the University and our potential to contribute to future advancements, particularly in evidence synthesis and leveraging expertise from information and computer science.”
Part of the Executive Board at the University's Healthy Lifespan Institute, Professor Webb's breath of work reflects on how social environments influence our behaviour.
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. It will be underpinned by community involvement, equity and social justice, with systems thinking and the importance of context at its core.
ESRC Executive Chair, Stian Westlake, said: “Successfully addressing society’s challenges requires a deep understanding of how and why people, organisations and groups behave the way they do, ranging from how individuals live, work and make critical life choices, to behaviours that enable or hamper innovation and productivity across communities, businesses and the economy.
“Behavioural research was critical to the UK’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and our ambition is to build on that legacy. ESRC’s new investments will boost the nation’s capacity. Together they will generate insights and foster the research skills necessary to facilitate and inform evidence-based decision making by policymakers, industry and civil society.”
The Healthy Lifespan Institute at the University of Sheffield is the UK’s first interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to understanding and preventing multimorbidity and frailty - to help everyone live healthier lives for longer.
