Our mission
Decision Insights for Business and Society (UBC-DIBS) is a behavioural research and policy solutions initiative at UBC Sauder School of Business. Our mission is to improve outcomes across major societal and planetary challenges by improving our understanding of decision-making, encouraging long-term behaviour change, and working together toward an environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable future.
Why decision insights
Every day we make hundreds of small decisions—what to eat, how much to save, and how to commute. With 8 billion people making these decisions 365 days a year, the impacts of these small, individual decisions can add up to big, societal problems. As a result, individual human decisions are a critical part of both the cause and the solution for our most urgent societal and planetary challenges (e.g., the climate crisis, income inequality, and decolonization).
The behavioural and decision sciences (e.g., psychology, consumer behaviour, economics, and related fields) use the scientific method to explore why and how people make decisions and behave. They combine economic incentives and psychological factors to build and rigorously test theories of decision-making and behaviour. The applied field of behavioural insights draws on the behavioural and decision sciences to “nudge” people to make choices that are better for themselves and the world.
UBC-DIBS combines behavioural and decision science research and behavioural insights practice to create decision insights for business and society—insights that harness the power of individual decisions to tackle important societal and planetary problems. Read about the three pillars of our work below or in our 2023-2024 Annual Report.
What we do
Behavioural & Decision Science Research
We conduct cutting-edge behavioural and decision science research to understand how we all make decisions and how to help us all make better decisions. We collaborate with partners in government, industry, and beyond to apply research insights to pressing environmental, economic, and social sustainability challenges.
We conduct cutting-edge behavioural and decision science research to understand how we all make decisions and how to help us all make better decisions. We collaborate with partners in government, industry, and beyond to apply research insights to pressing environmental, economic, and social sustainability challenges.
Behavioural Insights Training
We partner with UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies to help working professionals develop the behavioural insights knowledge and skills to tackle sticky problems and create positive behavioural change.
We partner with UBC Sauder Continuing Business Studies to help working professionals develop the behavioural insights knowledge and skills to tackle sticky problems and create positive behavioural change.
Behavioural Insights Events & Resources
We work with partners to host events, create resources, and support an interdisciplinary behavioural insights community that connects academic researchers with policymakers, executives, and behavioural insights enthusiasts and experts across the public, non-profit, and private sectors in British Columbia and beyond.
We work with partners to host events, create resources, and support an interdisciplinary behavioural insights community that connects academic researchers with policymakers, executives, and behavioural insights enthusiasts and experts across the public, non-profit, and private sectors in British Columbia and beyond.
Land Acknowledgment
UBC-DIBS is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We gratefully acknowledge these peoples, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next in this area. As behavioural scientists, we know that words are not enough. We are exploring how behavioural insights and Indigenous ways of knowing and being can be mutually supporting and how applied behavioural and decision science can contribute to Reconciliation.
Funding
UBC-DIBS is funded in part by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Partnership Development Grant and a UBC Grant for Catalyzing Research Clusters.
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