Post by Maria Giammarco
Senior Manager, Research & Development at Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER)
The road to Behavioural Insights (BI) is often paved unintentionally. For some, it’s a long and winding journey. For others, a happy accident! However you look at it, the point is this: many of us working in Behavioural Insights didn’t start with BI as the end goal.
The ‘stumbling on BI’ approach has worked out for those of us that it’s worked out for. But without clear or well-known entry points, who is missing out on BI? Or, better yet, who is BI missing out on?
Things are starting to change.
Behavioural Insights is a young and nebulous field - not yet a formal industry or accredited profession. It also isn’t a standard discipline in post-secondary; there are few, if any, BI undergraduate programs. Instead, it’s highly interdisciplinary, drawing on people from all sorts of backgrounds across and outside the umbrella of the behavioural and decision sciences.
As the field matures, BI is becoming more formalized. The Applied Behavioural Science Association’s (ABSA) work on an international competency framework for BI and the establishment of the Global Association of Applied Behavioural Scientists (GAABS) are examples of this. Canada is at the leading edge of the move to train working professionals in BI with the University of Toronto’s Behavioural Economics in Action edX course, UBC’s Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights, and government programs like the Impact Canada Fellowship Program. There is clear momentum to evolve and grow BI.
With this evolution comes an opportunity for post-secondary institutions to fill a gap in early talent development, by building intentional pathways into Behavioural Insights.
BI is a force for innovation and social impact. Through BI, we measure impact, make evidence-based decisions, and choose program, policy, and service solutions with stronger returns on investment. With more BI practitioners, we can strengthen the capacity of sectors across Canada to do this innovative, impactful work. BI also boosts science talent and literacy, which is especially important at a time when Canada faces labour crunches and international competition to develop, attract, and keep STEM talent. To do this, we need stronger BI pathways that awaken the next generation of practitioners to the possibility of applied science careers that might call to them, if they only knew they existed.
How can we build BI pathways?
We need different pathways to BI for different audiences.
Post-secondary students need structured opportunities to develop and apply BI skills. The idea is to bridge gaps to BI careers for a wide range of students, including psychology students at the end of their bachelor’s questioning what they can do with their degree, MPAs looking to build out their policy toolkit as they transition into public service jobs, and neuroscience PhDs wondering how they can connect their thesis work to social challenges as they contemplate jobs outside the academy.
What’s the BI-BHER connection?
This is the kind of stuff that gets us at the Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) excited. We’re all about connecting post-secondaries and employers to build pathways from school to work. One way we do this is by funding Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) - co-ops, internships, apprenticeships, practicums, case competitions, and so on. We bring new WIL opportunities to more students and we help post-secondaries and employers boost their capacity to give students high-quality, inclusive experiences. We’ve even built a hub of WIL tools and resources to support this capacity-building.
Bringing WIL and BI together just makes sense. Social and behavioural science programs often lack formal WIL opportunities compared to programs like business or engineering.
We’re working on a way to close that gap.
BHER’s Canada Comeback Challenge (C3), funded by Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada, was a national skill-building case competition that BHER launched in 2020 to bring virtual WIL opportunities to undergraduate students across Canada amidst the many pandemic-driven WIL cancellations. Over the Winter 2022 semester we developed and piloted, in partnership with UBC-DIBS, the Behavioural Insights stream of C3 – the BI C3.
In the pilot BI C3, students in the University of Guelph’s psychology capstone course, taught by Professor Dan Meegan, tackled one of four real-world BI challenges provided by our partners at the Behavioural Insights Team Canada, Hill & Knowlton Strategies, the BC Behavioural Insights Group, and Dialectic Solutions. The student teams went through a customized online “BI Bootcamp” and designed a BI solution for their challenge. The top teams then pitched their solution to the partners at a live online event.
The students blew us away with their creativity, dedication, and ability to embrace and apply BI in such a short amount of time. As we watched the future of BI in action, our suspicions were confirmed - we need to do more of this! Not only does the program give students exposure and skills in BI, it provides them with a WIL experience to apply technical skills they’ve learned in their programs, and develop human skills like critical thinking and communication.
Where do we go from here?
Through initiatives like the BI C3, we can raise the next generation of BI professionals, develop fresh ideas, and connect employers with the kind of talent they’re always looking for. But to do so we need BI teams and organizations to come together and work with post-secondaries to iterate on the BI C3 pilot and bring more BI challenges to more students across the country.
At BHER we’re equipped to help make those connections happen, and we have the resources to develop BI WIL opportunities. What we need are BI enthusiasts and partner organizations ready to help us scale these opportunities and take the lead on delivery.
We’re keen to see what we can create for the next generation of BI - and we hope you’ll join us for the ride.
If you’re interested in helping us grow BI talent pathways or want to learn more about running a BI challenge, connect with us at research@bher.ca.