Research: Behavioural Insight
About BIT: North
BIT: North (opens in a new window) is Behavioural Insight's Team's (BIT) first regional office in the UK. Based in Manchester, it helps city-regions and local areas in the North of England use behavioural insights to achieve greater efficiency and tackle key challenges.
It's founding partners are the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Health and Social Care Partnership who we have worked closely with since 2016.
Below is a selection of the work we have done in Greater Manchester. This page is intended to be a repository of the work we have done in the city region, and is a way of sharing the projects we have completed.
Health & social care
- Increased GP cancer referrals using social norms
- Increased willingness to get tested for bowel cancer by 8-10% using anticipated regret (online experiment)
- Tried to increase uptake of cancer screening by redesigning invitation letter for cervical cancer (online experiment) and breast cancer (field experiment). We did not get a significant result in either case.
- Recommendations for ways to increase uptake and completion of exercise referral programmes
- Encouraging joint working between specialists in Integrated Neighbourhood Teams in Manchester and Greater Manchester
- Developed proposals for ways to increase uptake of flu immunisations by 2-4 year olds
Skills & employment
- Revised the induction process & privacy notice for Working Well (online experiment)
Economic growth
- Identified how to promote exporting among regional businesses
Tax
- Simplifying the council tax reminder letter at Salford City Council
Early years
- Identified ways to support young children’s language and communication skills
Who we are
BIT is a social purpose company that helps design policies and programmes based on how people actually behave. We do this by drawing on research and ideas grounded in the behavioural sciences and on our experience gained over the past eight years applying these insights in a wide variety of sectors.
We are also highly empirical. We strive to test and trial our ideas before they are scaled up. This enables us to understand what works and, importantly, what does not work.
Contact us
If you would like to find out more about this work or discuss working together please get in touch.