2026 Behaviour Change Conference Programme

Professor Marijn de Bruin (Professor of Behavioural Medicine & Health Psychology at Radboud University Medical Center)

While global progress towards several key Sustainable Development Goals is promising, advancements on health, well-being, and – particularly - climate and sustainable consumption remain disappointing. To change this, the primary focus on individual-level behaviours is insufficient: we need to transform behaviours of system actors, including policy makers, healthcare organisations, and multinational corporations. Drawing on my academic research, public health policy experience, and work at an NGO striving for climate justice – I will discuss ways for enhancing the quality, applicability and impact of behavioural science on health and sustainability.

Prof Esther Papies (Professor of Enduring Behaviour Change for Sustainability, Radboud University)

We are in a planetary emergency, with human behaviour in the service of economic growth breaching the safe limits of biodiversity loss, climate change, and pollution.  This has significant costs for human health and social justice.  We are also in a crisis of systems and behaviour: most people are concerned about this crisis, but do not contribute to the systems and behaviour change that is needed for a safe future.  This is in part due to a crisis of imagination: The social and health co-benefits of living within planetary boundaries are clear and well-documented, but this is not communicated in the mainstream societal discourse in high-income societies. Instead, the focus is on sacrificing comfort to avert catastrophe.  This does not create motivation for change. 
 
The motivation for change requires expecting rewarding outcomes – in other words, a better future.  This should therefore be central to policy making and communication to address the planetary emergency.  Using this approach, behavioural science can play at least three key roles in addressing these crises.  First, behavioural scientists can help co-create visions for a better future, which can provide motivation for change.  Second, they can use their expertise to help communicate these visions to engage stakeholders and grow the movement to translate it into action.  Finally, behavioural scientists can help re-shape systems in such a way that behaviour in line with planetary boundaries is rewarding rather than costly.  A better future is possible, and it will take a concerted effort to create it.

Dr Joana Gonçalves de Sá (Principal Investigator, LIP - Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particles Physics)

As artificial intelligence systems increasingly mediate access to
information, understanding the interaction between human and algorithmic
bias has become a central societal challenge. Search engines (SEs) and
large language models (LLMs) are often perceived as neutral
intermediaries, yet their outputs are shaped by training data,
optimization objectives, platform incentives, and user behavior.
Through examples and drawing on a case study conducted before the 2024
European Parliament elections, this talk will explore how human and
algorithmic biases interact and reinforce one another, contributing to
fragmented informational realities. In particular, it will present a
privacy-preserving bot system that was used to perform synchronized
searches across locations and query types, revealing consistent
amplification of particular political entities and narratives by both
SEs and LLMs.