HOW TO

Working with us - a partnership approach

BehaviourWorks Australia is called a research enterprise for a reason. From the start, our aim has been to break down the barriers that have previously prevented academic research from being translated into practice and to helping organisations make evidence-based program and investment decisions.

Advice you can trust

BehaviourWorks Australia is not a consultancy per se. Rather, we’re a university-based research unit that helps organisations understand common and complex social, environmental and organisational problems by examining them through a behavioural lens. We then collaborate with them on solutions.

We believe that having a practice grounded in academia gives us – and our partners – a distinct advantage.

It means that our researchers are independent and trained to seek out and interpret data and provide qualified advice on the social, psychological, economic and environmental dimensions of these problems.

Collaborative model

Collaboration is in our DNA. It’s a mindset that reflects our commitment to working with our partners in a way that maximises opportunities for knowledge sharing, capability building and the translation of research evidence into policy and practice.

While grounded in academia, many of our researchers have worked in government and industry and are sensitive to the systems and processes of business.

Our partners tell us that we’re innovative, agile and fun to work with; one that doesn’t just focus on theory but on problem-solving.

Partnership types

There are two ways of working with us.

1: Consortium partners are generally organisations that have worked with us for some time and want to enter into a more formal arrangement to enable knowledge sharing and capability building.

2. Project partners are organisations that work with us on a project by project basis. In entering into these partnerships, we generally look for projects that have a social benefit and have the potential to result in a publication, conference presentation or report.

To all our partners we offer:

A tried and tested method for identifying behavioural problems, prioritising behaviours and developing intervention strategies to solve common and complex problems.

Access to specialists from a range of behavioural/social science backgrounds.

Skills in designing, conducting and evaluating behaviour change trials.

Access to a subject matter experts from Monash University and other knowledge centres around the world.

Education and training.

Research services

BehaviourWorks offers a broad range of research services to its partners and works closely with them to identify the right tool for the job. These services – listed below – are generally aligned to the BehaviourWorks Method. Within the Method are a number of tools and processes that can be used in combination, or separately, to understand and address specified problems.

While the toolkit is large, we have developed some specialised products below.

Special services/research strengths

– Facilitated Dialogues

To gain a deeper understanding of the problem under investigation, BehaviourWorks offers Facilitated Dialogues. The dialogues have been extensivley tested with a range of different audiences and have proven to be highly effective in bringing stakeholders together to consider the latest evidence on the problem and identify evidence-based opportunities for action.

Facilitated Dialogues can help organisations avoid making costly assumptions and yield a shared understanding of ‘who needs to do what’ differently. Download the Flyer here.

– Rapid Evidence and Practice Reviews

The traditional route to finding evidence on ‘what’s worked’ to address specific problems is the Systematic Review (SR). While SRs are recommended when time – and budgets – allow, many organisations need a faster and more cost-effective route to finding answers, which is where Rapid Reviews come in.

Rapid Reviews are an emerging method of efficiently synthesising research evidence within a short timeframe.

They are often complemented by Practice Reviews, which consist of structured interviews with a small number of people who are actively involved in the issue at hand and can reveal insights on what’s happening on the ground right now.

Download the Rapid Review and Practice Review flyer here.

– INSPIRE Framework for better communications

BehaviourWorks has identified seven proven techniques for improving written communications and, by doing so, increase compliance with written requests. The techniques have been translated into a stand-alone product called INSPIRE, which provides specific instructions on how to apply each of these techniques and overcome practical challenges as they arise.

Download the INSPIRE flyer here.

– Hackathons

BehaviourWorks’ hackathons are like short, intensive ‘design-sprints’. They give organisations practical advice on how to improve their products or services by integrating strategies that will increase the likelihood of the desired behaviour change.

Download the Hackathon Flyer here.

General/other research services

- - Systems mapping to identify the individuals, groups and organisations involved in the problem and who may be part of the solution.
  - Stakeholder engagement to gain a deeper understanding of the problem and how it is experienced in the real world.
  - Behavioural identification and prioritisation to give the partners a clear idea of the behaviours to target.
  - Target audience research to build a more detailed understanding of the context, barriers and motivations behind the behaviours.
  - Intervention co-design – linking the evidence to a range of practical intervention options.
  - Analysis of datasets to help understand the nuances and scale of the problem and the factors that may be contributing to it.
  - Field trials to test the effects and impacts of different intervention approaches before a broader roll-out takes place.
  - Monitoring and evaluation frameworks to determine what type of data should be collected (and how often) during a trial and adaptively manage interventions based on interim findings.
  - Knowledge sharing/translation through direct engagement with organisational staff and capability building (i.e. training).

All of the above services and approaches are informed by the latest developments and thinking from the field of behavioural science.

Getting started

Experience tells us that many organisations need help defining the problem to begin with, so we normally recommend that organisations bring us in early to help unpack the problem.

That said, the starting point of any project is to simply pick up the phone and talk to us.