BRAINS
Welcome to BRAINS – Behavioural Research Alliance for Impact and Networks at Sheffield
About BRAINS
The Behavioural Research Alliance for Impact and Networks at Sheffield (BRAINS) is an interdisciplinary research network at the University of Sheffield dedicated to understanding and influencing human behaviour for societal and organisational good.
Launched by the Faculty of Social Sciences, BRAINS unites scholars from Economics, Management, Psychology, and Sociological Studies to address real-world challenges in decision-making, sustainability, inclusivity, and wellbeing. Building on Sheffield’s long-standing excellence in behavioural and experimental research, BRAINS serves as an interdisciplinary platform for generating high-impact insights, shaping policy, and developing innovative applications locally, nationally, and globally.
Director: Prof. Subhasish M. Chowdhury (Economics).
Co-Director: Dr. Ozlem Arikan (Management).
- Steering Committee
What we do
Our mission
BRAINS aims to make the University of Sheffield a leading hub for behavioural research by:
- Fostering interdisciplinary collaboration across the social sciences and beyond.
- Creating partnerships with public, private, and voluntary sector organizations.
- Developing major research grants that address real-world problems through behavioural science.
- Supporting early-career researchers through mentoring, collaboration, and visibility.
- Embedding Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in all aspects of our work.
Our activities
BRAINS coordinates a wide range of activities to connect people and ideas:
- Online seminars bringing together leading academics and practitioners in behavioural science.
- In-person workshops and symposia for networking, knowledge exchange, and project development.
- Grant scoping and writing support that identifies opportunities and builds teams for large interdisciplinary funding bids.
- Collaborative projects that apply behavioural insights to policy and social challenges.
Events
Find out about our upcoming events:
BRAINS Webinar Series: Intergroup Preferences of Large Language Models - Professor Yan Chen (University of Michigan)
Speaker: Professor Yan Chen (Daniel Kahneman Collegiate Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan)
Title: Intergroup Preferences of Large Language Models
Date: Tuesday 19 August 2026, 2–3 pm BST
Format: Online via Google Meet. Registration (free) via this link. The joining link and a reminder will be emailed to registrants before the talk.
Abstract: We investigate whether large language models exhibit human-like intergroup preferences in strategic environments by comparing choices from DeepSeek-R1, Gemini 3 Pro, and GPT-5 with those of human participants from five economic experiments involving minimal groups, religious and political identities, sectarian identities in Lebanon, North versus South Korean identities, and left-behind children in rural China. Compared to their human counterparts, LLMs are: (1) overly responsive to economic incentives; (2) too groupish along political identity lines, exhibiting more extreme in-group favoritism than humans; and (3) excessively responsive to debiasing interventions. We also observe systematic differences in different foundation models. These results demonstrate that LLMs operate with distinct and predictable group-contingent social preferences. Their amplification of political biases and inability to grasp nuanced cultural contexts pose significant risks if deployed for policy simulation or in real-world applications.
All are welcome. Please feel free to forward this to interested colleagues and students.
Get involved with the network
BRAINS welcomes academics, practitioners, policymakers, and research students interested in behavioural research and its applications.
Members gain access to:
- a cross-disciplinary network for collaboration.
- regular events and seminars.
- opportunities to engage with external partners and develop new projects.
- support for grant applications and research impact.
Collaborate with us!
Whether you’re a government body, NGO, business, or public service provider, we’re eager to collaborate. Find out how your organisation can work with BRAINS on behavioural insights and interventions.
Contact details
If you would like to join or collaborate with BRAINS, please contact Prof. Subhasish Chowdhury by emailing subhasish.chowdhury@sheffield.ac.uk