Abstract
Behavioural Public Policy has matured as a field, with a strong track record of informing public administration and increasingly, policy design, where problems are well defined, audiences and behavioural drivers are bounded, and interventions can be clearly specified. However, many of today’s most pressing administration and policy challenges, including climate and energy transitions, care systems reform, artificial intelligence, and large-scale institutional change, are characterised by complexity, uncertainty, and multi-level system dynamics.
In these contexts, behavioural scientists are increasingly being asked to move beyond individual-level behaviour change to support governments navigating wicked problems in administration and intentional, multi-scale system transitions in policy. This raises key empirical and conceptual questions: What does knowledge production look like when problems are complex rather than tractable? Which behavioural approaches or methodologies help policymakers navigate complex realities? How can we move from diagnosis to treatment in ways that are systematic, replicable, reliable, and transparent? And ultimately, what does complexity-informed behavioural science suggest must change in public policy and administration?
Drawing on applied work across climate and energy, environmental protection, diversity and inclusion, central government behavioural units, and behavioural research organisations, pracademic panellists will discuss:
- What is already working when behavioural science is applied in complex systems;
- The institutional and system-level behaviours, enablers, and constraints within government that shape what is possible;
- What needs to change in how behavioural science is designed, governed, practised, and taught if it is to be embedded as a core consideration in public policy and administration.