Join Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein, and Maya Shankar in this special episode celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the Behavioural Insights Team. They discuss the origins of 'nudge', the role of behavioral insight strategies in government agencies, using experimental methods for positive outcomes, Richard's involvement with the White House, regrets and trade-offs in policy-making, and the global impact of the UK Behavioral Insights Team.

The Behavioural Insights Team have spent the last 10 years developing solutions that are informed by behavioural science. These insights do not emerge overnight. Instead, they are grounded in a firm understanding of the systems in which we operate. Reading academic (or policy) papers is an important step to developing evidence based interventions, but it will only get you so far if you want to understand the context in which you want to implement an intervention. Instead, we argue that you need to leave the office and try to experience the context as closely as you can, either by directly experiencing it, or by directly speaking to the people that do.  To try to convince you that you should step away from your desk, we’ve created a podcast which we think will give you a much better sense of why you can’t read your way out of a complex policy problem.  In this podcast, Alex Gyani and Rory Gallagher from BIT’s Sydney office speak to Zoe Powell, Saul Wodak, Allison Wong, Edwina Crawford and Sophie Munro about their experiences of going out into the field and some of the insights they took from that process. We’ll describe projects that have tackled domestic violence, unemployment and the health and safety of gig economy workers. If you want to know more about those specific projects, just follow the links posted in this description.    We cover lots of projects in this podcast. This work has been designed with and funded by a wide range of organisations. In particular, we would like to acknowledge and thank: The NSW Behavioural Insights Unit, the NSW Aboriginal Services Unit within the NSW Department of Justice (for the work on reducing domestic work in NSW) The NSW Government’s Centre for Work Health and Safety (for the work on Food Delivery Workers in NSW) The JobCentre Plus teams in Essex, UK (for the work on employment in the UK) And the Customer Experience and Design, and Trial Design Evaluation teams in the NZ Ministry for Social Development (for our ongoing partnership) We apologise to anyone we have omitted and thank all our partners who have helped inform and evolve our Explore work.   Note: that this podcast describes the court processes involved in domestic violence cases. While no acts of violence are described in the podcast, if you are affected by domestic violence or abuse, there are a number of services you can reach out to.    Australia:  Call 000 if you are in immediate danger. To access 24/7 counselling and support call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. New Zealand: Call 111 if you are in immediate danger. Call 0800 456 450 free from any phone, 9am to 11pm every day. UK: Call 000 if you are in immediate danger. For free and confidential advice, anytime call 0808 2000 247. US: Call 911 if you are in immediate danger. For free and confidential advice, anytime call 1800 799 7233.    Credits: Editing by Evan Sycamnias at Pixelife Studio Production by Alex Gyani  Musical credits: Intro: Next to you by Jessie Villa Outro: Cassette Deck by Basketcase Additional music by Enrize Studio

Debate between proponents and critics of RCTs in government, supercharged funding for RCTs by Education Endowment Foundation, discussion on being evidence-based government, comparison of 'nudge' trials with academia, promise of machine learning in decision making

In this episode, BIT's CEO, Professor David Halpern, speaks to the New South Wales Minister for Customer Service, Victor Dominello. David and Victor cover a wide range of topics, starting with why other governments should have a Minister for Customer Service, how behavioural insights can improve economic policy, how markets can be made more transparent and when governments should intervene in markets.    Victor has been the Member of Parliament for Ryde since 2008. He has held the position of Minister for Customer Service since April 2019. Prior to that Victor held the position of the Minister for Finance, Services and Property and was appointed the state’s first Minister for Innovation and Better Regulation in 2015. His earlier appointments include the Minister for Citizenship, Communities, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the Minister for Veterans Affairs and the Assistant Minister for Education. As mentioned on the podcast, the NSW Behavioural Insights Unit was established in 2012 and has been located in the Department of Customer Service since 2019.   You can keep up to date with the work that he has been doing through his website, LinkedIn and Twitter.    Further reading   If you want to read some news coverage about the FuelCheck app, you can go here or head to the FuelCheck website here.  If you want to learn more about the Comprehensive Third Party reforms, you can read about it here.  You can also read more about the work that the New South Wales Behavioural Insights Unit are doing here.    Credits    Editing by Evan Sycamnias at Pixelife Studio Music by Rich O’Brien Thanks to Ellie Wood at the Minister’s Office, and Dave Trudinger, Eva Koromilas and the Behavioural Insights Unit. 

Welcome to Inside The Nudge Unit, the new podcast series from the world's first Nudge Unit, The Behavioural Insights Team, exploring the fascinating world of behavioural insights