Human Behaviour-Change Project Knowledge System Launch

You're invited to the launch of the Human Behaviour-Change Project Knowledge System and the cutting-edge tools developed as a result of six years of interdisciplinary collaboration between behavioural and computer scientists.

Join us on Tuesday, 6th June from 2-5pm BST to learn about the latest advancements in the field of behaviour change intervention evaluations. Professor Susan Michie (UCL) will introduce the work and outline the next steps, while Professors James Thomas (UCL), Janna Hastings (University of Zurich & St Gallen), and Robert West (UCL) will demonstrate the tools for identifying studies, extracting and organizing information, predicting outcomes, and reporting on behaviour change interventions.

Don't miss the opportunity to engage with experts in the field and participate in the Q&A session, facilitated by Professor Marie Johnston (University of Aberdeen).

We look forward to seeing you there!

Speaker bios:

Susan Michie, FMedSci, FAcSS, FBA is Professor of Health Psychology and Director of UCL's Centre for Behaviour Change Professor Michie’s research focuses on human behaviour change in relation to health and the environment: how to understand it theoretically and apply theory and evidence to intervention and policy development, evaluation and implementation. Her research, collaborating with disciplines such as information science, environmental science, computer science and medicine, covers population, organisational and individual level interventions. She has served as an expert advisor on the UK’s Covid-19 Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behavioural Science (part of SAGE and the Lancet’s Covid-19 Commission. She is chair of WHO’s Behavioural Insights and Sciences Technical Advisory Group.

James Thomas , Ph.D., is Principal Investigator of the Systematic Reviews Facility for the Department of Health, England, which is a large programme of policy-relevant systematic reviews with accompanying methodological development to increase their relevance and applicability for decision-making. He co-led the Cochrane ‘Project Transform’ which is implementing novel technologies and processes (including machine learning and crowdsourcing) to improve the efficiency of systematic reviews, and is co-i on a major Collaborative Award from Wellcome, the Human Behaviour-Change Project, led by Susan Michie (UCL), which is developing technologies and methodologies to organise, synthesise and present the literature in behavioural science.

Janna Hastings, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Medical Knowledge and Decision Support, University of Zurich and University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Janna has worked on ontology research and development for more than a decade across multiple disciplines. She develops the Mental Functioning Ontology and related projects, and until 2015 she was ontology lead and project coordinator for the ChEBI chemical ontology, during which time she also worked on related biological ontologies. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Computer Science and an MA in Philosophy.

Robert West , Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Health Psychology at University College London. He specialises in behaviour change and addiction with a special focus on tobacco use. He has more than 900 academic publications. He has acted as an advisor to the UK government on behaviour change and authored several books on behaviour change as well as guides for government agencies. His most recent book is ‘React: Harness your animal brain’ which provides a concise summary of our understanding of motivation as it applies to topics such as addiction.