Research projects

We've worked on hundreds of projects to address some of the world's most pressing social, environmental and organisational problems.

Featured projects

Major projects

Our major projects showcase programs that utilise the entire BehaviourWorks Method and demonstrate the potential of accomplishing transformative change for our societies.

VMIA Health Trials

Victorians enjoy a world-class public healthcare system with state-of-the-art facilities and highly trained staff who put care and compassion at the centre of everything they do. But in a complex health system where so many decisions are made under pressure, things sometimes go wrong.

Scale up

When we know that a behaviour change intervention has worked in a pilot or trial, how can we scale it up to achieve greater impact and reach?

COVID-19 Scrub study

BehaviourWorks leads the Australian chapter of the Survey of COVID-19 Responses to Understand Behaviour (SCRUB) study, a real-time survey tracking how groups of people all over the world are responding to health messages – and changing their behaviour - in response to the pandemic.

Waste collaboration

This page shares the results of a research collaboration led by BehaviourWorks Australia (BWA) and its partners to explore and better understand how behavioural insights can be used to encourage households, businesses and the whole Australian community to avoid, reduce, reuse and recycle waste and improve the livability and sustainability of our cities and regions.

Featured projects

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Survey of skills gaps in med tech and pharma

Australia’s ‘Med Tech and Pharma’ (MTP) sector is a dynamic and critically important part of our economy, employing around 70,000* highly skilled workers across medical technology, biotechnology, pharmaceutical and digital health. The skills of MTP workers are valued around the world and organisations in the sector invest heavily in professional development and training. However, like most sectors, skills gaps remain. While many of these are well known, MTPConnect – the not-for-profit Industry Growth Centre aiming to establish Australia as an Asia-Pacific hub for MTP companies – wants to ensure the sector is positioned for an even more dynamic future, engaging BehaviourWorks Australia to conduct a formal analysis of skills and capacity.

Melbourne Water - New Ways of Working

Victoria’s stringent COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 forced dramatic changes to daily patterns and workplaces. Large organisations had to deal with teams working from home and scrambling to remain productive.

A look at food waste from inside the family home

Food waste is estimated to cost the Australian community over $20 billion a year, with more than five million tonnes of food ending up in landfill. This has major environmental impacts. Australia’s leading food rescue organisation, OzHarvest, is working hard to address the issue, rescuing around 180 tonnes of food every week from 3,000 food donors, including supermarkets, restaurants and other food outlets. While OzHarvest is doing a remarkable job, it wants to do more to prevent food waste, primarily by reducing food waste in the home.

Growing agriculture’s energy future

Victorian farmers, like farmers everywhere, aim to maximise their outputs by being efficient with their inputs. Energy is key to this, and to help farmers stay resilient, productive and adaptable, the Victorian Government has developed the Agriculture Energy Investment Plan (AEIP) that works to assist and engage with the agricultural industry to improve production, investment, skills and promote new energy technologies developments.

The village raises the child

If you knew a family was struggling, would you babysit for them? Cook a meal maybe?

Do dog walkers need obedience training?

In our ever-growing cities, competition for space and open parkland means overlapping uses and behaviours can cause conflict when it comes to dog walking. The Darebin Parklands in Melbourne’s North East offers a beautiful designated off-lead area for dogs, but for others to enjoy the park, dog walkers need to keep their dogs on the leash. While most dog walkers were helpful and genuinely keen to help, it was clear that tensions exist between perceived positive and negative outcomes of keeping ‘Fido’ on or off the lead. Dog walkers recognise that keeping their dogs on the lead benefits other park users and wildlife, but they also want their dogs to exercise, play and explore.

Getting women into leadership positions

A team of researchers including BehaviourWorks Australia Senior Research Fellow, Dr Bradley Jorgensen, recently explored the factors behind the startling fact that when it comes to becoming CEO at a local government level, fewer than 10 per cent are women. Taking data from senior managers in local government in South Australia, the research rules out the notion that this is through lack of ambition on the part of women candidates; rather it’s the result of structural issues around recruitment and the inherent bias towards men when it comes to selection.

Which behaviours are driving our wasteful ways with food?

In New South Wales, the average household disposes of around six litres of food waste a week. Run by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA), the Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) program seeks to raise awareness about the environmental, economic and social impacts of food waste as a strategy for reducing the amount of food waste being sent to landfill.

Using SMS messaging to increase vaccination rates

The Australian Government’s National Immunisation Program funds a variety of vaccines, including the three-dose Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. In Victoria, this is delivered by local councils through secondary schools. However, many students whose parents or guardians have consented to the vaccination are not getting all three doses, partly because some of them miss the school session. Councils don’t usually send reminders prior to school visits. However, research in similar contexts has shown it may be an effective way of improving vaccination rates.

Untangling Hoddle Street traffic

Hoddle Street is one of Melbourne’s busiest roads and a critical link for north-south traffic. To improve traffic flow, VicRoads decided to introduce P-Turns and Continuous Flow Intersections (CFIs) to give more ‘green time’ to people travelling along Hoddle Street and Punt Road by changing the way right turns are made.

Increasing digital take up in Government

Low uptake is one of the largest risks facing government agencies seeking to increase efficiency and reduce costs by providing services online. To date, very few studies have tested interventions to increase citizen’s use of e-government services.

Research investment to improve patient safety

In March 2017, BehaviourWorks Australia and the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority (VMIA) joined forces to develop and deliver a $1.5m Patient Safety Research and Innovation Program to improve patient safety in public healthcare. The VMIA provides risk advice and insurance services for the Victorian Government and works with more than 4,300 clients, including government departments, health centres, community service organisations and tertiary institutions to improve the quality of life for the Victorian community.

MAPS - The Road to Behaviour Change

Ipsos Australia has released an innovative e-book charting the history of behavioural science, the various movements, ideas and techniques that have come, gone and crisscrossed one another, particularly over the past 50 years, and the theories and practices are most likely to lead us down the road to lasting change.

Reducing family violence

In response to the Royal Commission into Family Violence (and its 227 recommendations), the Victorian Government commissioned The Shannon Company, in partnership with BehaviourWorks, to develop a public education campaign aimed at moving family violence to the forefront of things we have to deal with as a community.

A 'heads up' on safe swimming

Rainwater flushes all sorts of pollutants into Port Phillip Bay. During the warmer months, this is monitored by Environment Protection Authority (EPA) Victoria, which provides daily water quality forecasts for beach users on its website and social media. The aim is to help beachgoers make the right decisions about water-based activities when the weather is right, but the water isn’t.

Study buddies for sustainable schools

The Victorian Government’s ResourceSmart Schools (RSS) program is an award-winning program that supports schools in embedding sustainability into everything they do; their energy and water use, waste management, enhanced biodiversity and staff and student participation. Managed by Sustainability Victoria (SV) and delivered in partnership with government and non-government organisations, the program has reached over 1,300 Victorian schools and 96 early learning services since 2008. This has saved participants over $20 million through energy, waste and water savings and avoided over 60,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Reducing pollution in Old Joes Creek

Old Joes Creek’ is a drain than runs underneath an industrial estate in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. It’s heavily polluted, carrying insecticides and heavy metals such as cadmium, silver and lead into Dandenong Creek. It smells. Fish are dying. Something had to be done.

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