Behaviour change in practice: the DG Cities team and approach
For the second week of our Nudge Month series, we’re sharing a little more about our team, our approach and recent projects. To kick off, Head of Research, Ed Houghton has written a short blog explaining who we are, what we do and how (and why) we do it. He explains the makeup of our multidisciplinary team and the value of this to a full-cycle approach, from undertaking primary research to evaluation – we don’t stop at delivery, but examine what works and where any improvements could be made, learning all the time.
At DG Cities, our research touches on a wide range of place-related topics, from the latest in self-driving cars to digital inclusion for the most vulnerable in society. If there’s a technology and community angle, we’re interested. Whilst this is super exciting and interesting, it also poses all sorts of challenges – most significantly, how do we make sure what we do has impact and that we have the knowledge we need to make it work? This is why we are intentionally multidisciplinary. Our ability to approach a problem from different viewpoints is, I think, the secret to our success.
As a company, we combine years of experience and knowledge from our jobs and studies in all sorts of areas, from environmental science, engineering, psychology, economics and communications, to transport planning, geography and digital technology. This breadth of backgrounds allows us to take a holistic view of the problems we’re looking to tackle – and as such, means we can bring a unique perspective to the challenges our partners and clients face. This breadth is something we’ve built into our behavioural science team. We bring together both quant and qual perspectives, pairing psychology and economics disciplines. As an approach, this brings some exciting combinations of skills and approaches. Let me introduce you to our key team…
Isobel Madle is our Behavioural Scientist, and leads the design and delivery of our behaviour science projects, focusing on qualitative methodological design and analysis. Isobel has a background in psychology and communications and is passionate about helping people and places become more liveable, fairer and more sustainable. Her focus on wellbeing, and how to improve it, means she is always interested in approaches that create positive and lasting impact for communities, particularly those who are most disadvantaged. Her background in some of the UK’s biggest communications agencies gives her deep expertise in how to deliver change at pace, and work with people from diverse backgrounds via a multitude of channels and methods.
At DG Cities, Isobel is leading some of our most exciting work helping to implement new technologies which shape behaviours, including delivering an innovative waste-reduction project in a Greenwich housing estate using smart cameras and behaviour change communications. She is also developing new approaches to help people conserve energy in the home, again, using a mix of new technologies alongside “nudges” to help consumers save energy and money.
Leanne Kelly is our Economist, with a behavioural economics MSc, bringing skills in quantitative data and behavioural insights analysis. This helps to paint a picture of the significant, and interrelated, challenges our towns and cities face, and ensures we can measure impact and create a robust evidence base. Leanne’s passion for data, evaluation and wellbeing means she brings to work unique perspectives and analyses, particularly in relation to community level interventions where, in data terms, things can get ‘messy’.
As a trained economist with over a decade of experience working with local authorities, in infrastructure and urban development, Leanne takes a big picture view of the problem and ensures when we design interventions, undertake assessments and deliver evaluations our approaches are fit for purpose. This is invaluable for work with local authorities where policies and interventions must have a clear business case and demonstrate tangible (but often hard to measure) impact, and where learning through the project lifecycle is critical.
And finally, me. As the sector lead, I help to oversee our behaviour change projects, supporting design and delivery, and enabling the team to engage through our partnerships and work with clients. As an engineer with a social science career, I’ve been driven to explore ‘what works?’ through all my projects, from evaluating mental health interventions for those working in financial services to building a network of professionals and academics to help disseminate evidence and change practice for the better. In essence, I try to find the gaps in knowledge and work out ways to plug them. Ultimately, I’m excited about meeting and working with others passionate about creating positive change through the better use of evidence and data.
As a team, we think our approach and background puts us a unique position to deliver transformative projects that can create meaningful change for residents, while offering value for clients and local authorities. We’re still growing, learning and developing; we will never finish building knowledge, as every project informs our understanding, deepens our insight. Every interaction is unique, just as no two places or communities are the same – we might draw on literature reviews and best practice in the field, but we place a high priority on primary research and getting out there, speaking to the people we are trying to support and keeping an open mind. Evaluation is also a fundamental principle of our approach; seeing what works, where we might improve things further. We’re excited about the future, and the opportunities to develop new ways to combine emerging technologies with behaviour change to improve people’s lives.