Friday, November 1st, marked our seventh annual BIG Difference BC conference. Despite the seriousness of the theme of “Applying Behavioural Insights to Urgent Challenges”, the day turned out to be a mini celebration of the power of joy!
WELCOME
We began our day as we most enjoy—with Stephanie Papik guiding us in setting our intentions and opening the circle. Participants foreshadowed the positive sentiments to follow by setting intentions such as showing up with curiosity, respect, and gratitude.
Participants’ intentions and agreements offered during the opening of Circle Practice.
Keynote Address: “Nudging Climate Action & Happiness”
After the day’s space had been positively anchored by our intentions, the keynote presentation from Jiaying Zhao (a.k.a. JZ) began. JZ made a strong case both for joy and a radical paradigm shift away from doom-and-gloom climate messaging. She advocated for actions that both help the planet and our happiness at the same time, like eating more plants and adopting a lifestyle of reusing, repairing, and recycling.
Dr. Crystal C. Hall, University of Washington
“After this past week, I mostly keep reflecting on JZ's talk and how we have to rethink how we approach the thorniest social and policy issues like climate change. In an environment often rich with fear, misunderstanding, and misinformation, it seems like applied behavioural scientists must find different strategies to engage and motivate action. While I continue to digest the conference along with the events in the U.S. recently, it is very clear that we have to take a fresh approach to understanding people's motivations and inclinations and what those mean for public policy and the public good.”
Lightning talks: Wildfires, Organ Donation, & Apprenticeships
The keynote address was followed by a series of three interesting lightning talks. Kaitlyn Fallow shared research about risk reduction related to the wildland-urban interface, Karen Smallwood provided an overview of a trial to increase organ donation registration rates in British Columbia, and Amelia Usher shared null results of trials aimed at increasing uptake of financial incentives for workers and employers—a hit with the BIG Difference BC audience and testament to the Ontario Behavioural Insights Unit’s scientific integrity—and emphasized the finding that behaviourally informed tweaks to government communications can have outsized impacts.
Dr. Kirstin Appelt, UBC Decision Insights for Business & Society
“This year's morning lightning talks highlighted the breadth of challenges that behavioural insights can tackle. There were really great insights from all three talks, but I was particularly proud to have Karen Smallwood represent one of our student teams from UBC's Advanced Professional Certificate in Behavioural Insights! Karen and team found that a simple nudge to check your donor status increased organ donation registration. This brings home that sometimes we just need simple reminders — life is busy and things fall through the cracks, but simple reminders can save the day. I thought that nicely continued the theme of finding hope and cause for optimism in the midst of the challenges we face.”
Micro-Presentations on financial, health, Climate, & Government challenges + Upcoming BI Courses
After a break, we turned to micro-presentations from nine different speakers representing a wide variety of backgrounds and topics. They shared snapshots of projects including saving for emergencies and reducing barriers to providing financial aid for students; increasing vaccine uptake and tackling obesity; resistance to misinformation and increasing the use of personal protective measures; increasing energy-efficiency adoption and understanding perceptions of climate policy instruments; and a webinar about upcoming BI courses. Micro-presentations are opportunities for presenters to practice sharing their work succinctly and our presenters did just that and in engaging and efficient ways!
Mikayla Ford, BC Behavioural Insights Group
“I was grateful to be able to revisit recordings and PDFs from this year’s micro presentations. With so much great content happening at the same time, you can’t help but feel like you’re missing out on cool new research findings! I was excited to see a lot of diverse methodological applications this year. There were fascinating field studies using administrative data as was the case in Annabel’s presentation on student funding at the University of Toronto, and using social media click-through rates as Capulet did when measuring the impact of messages to encourage HPV vaccines in Bangladesh. Other studies explored survey data measuring opinions, self-reported behaviour, intentions, and actual decisions in simulated environments. It’s encouraging to see new insights emerging from creative and novel approaches.”
Special Session: “Responding to the Climate Crisis”
In the afternoon, we heard from three experts in different fields that are “Responding to the Climate Crisis”: Dr. Andrea MacNeill from Vancouver General Hospital on planetary health care, Dr. Don Carruthers Den Hoed from UBC and the PARKS+ Collective on conservation, and Naureen Naqvi from UNICEF on disaster preparedness and response. This panel discussion took a different tack from past years and had the panelists focus on opportunities for behavioural science in addition to highlighting where behavioural science has already been used.
Panel discussion on “Responding to the Climate Crisis”
Carl Jensen, BC Behavioural Insights Group
“I had the pleasure of moderating this year’s special session. In her talk on planetary health care, Andrea discussed sustainable healthcare for the planet, how closely it can align with the needs of patients, and how the focus needs to shift to be more people-centered. She felt that we as a population need to stop giving healthcare a pass when it comes to negative environmental effects. In his comments on conservation, Don talked about the opportunity to work with nature as opposed to against it. He went on to describe the opportunity to change parks from destinations to doorways for what is possible and how they can inspire. Finally, in her talk on disaster preparedness and response, Naureen discussed her experiences around the world and how hardships can make people stronger. She also emphasized the power of partnerships with local community organizations and their ability to champion behaviour-related initiatives for residents.”
LIghtning Talks: AI Scams, Fentanyl Crisis, & Sustainable Farming
The audience then heard three great afternoon lightning talks. Riona Carriaga and Matthew Kan discussed their teams’ collaboration to combat AI-enabled scams targeted at investors. Penny Norman shared the results of the Rescue Agency’s work to tackle the fentanyl crisis using extensive user research and tailored messaging to great effect. The afternoon lightning talks concluded with a presentation by Cecilia Shang and Jessica Li on uptake of a cost-share program aimed at helping farmers build resilient farms.
Isabel Chew, BC Behavioural Insights Group
“The lightning talks addressed some of the most pressing challenges of our day, including the rise of retail investor scams, the opioid crisis, and agricultural sustainability. For me, the presentations really drove home the need to go deeper into understanding the motivations and barriers that shape target groups’ behaviour. This is especially important when developing interventions, since a one-size-fits-all solution may not work for everyone. Penny Norman’s talk on using behaviour change communications to tackle the fentanyl crisis was a great example of how we can leverage behavioural insights specific to young adults’ drug use to promote harm reduction measures among this group of users.”
Closing
We brought a close to our day with the same intentionality as we began: Stephanie Papik guided us in closing circle practice by sharing key takeaways from the event. We also continued the tradition of sharing a sneak peek at BIG Difference BC 2025, which will explore “Changing Behaviour in Complex Systems” on Friday, November 7, 2025. After expressing our gratitude to all involved, we closed out the day with everyone ideally feeling a little more hopeful and joyful than they did at the start!