Centre for National Training and Research Excellence in Understanding Behaviour (CENTRE-UB)

The UK's next generation of behavioural scientists will learn to design, run, and interpret large-scale studies that change how people actually act, not just how they say they will act. This Centre addresses a persistent gap in doctoral training: most PhD programmes teach students to measure attitudes or intentions, but far fewer train them to rigorously test interventions that change real-world behaviour—whether that’s getting people to take a vaccine, reduce energy use, or stick to a financial plan. Without this skills pipeline, policy and industry decisions rely on weak evidence. If the Centre succeeds, it will produce a cohort of researchers who can move beyond lab surveys into field experiments, natural experiments, and analyses of administrative data. These graduates will work in government, healthcare, transport, and technology, where small behavioural shifts can have large aggregate effects—on carbon emissions, public health, or household savings. The training is applied by design, not fundamental science: the goal is to equip people to solve specific, measurable problems, not to explore theoretical models of choice for their own sake.