Embedding co-design in behavioural science approaches to intervention development

26 November 2025

Key facts

Full title: Embedding co-design in behavioural science approaches to intervention development.

Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research

Total amount awarded: £21,279.42

Start date: November 2025

Duration: 9 months

Research Partners: Queen Mary University of London

CBC researchers: Dr Amanda Moore (PI), Prof Fabiana Lorencatto (co-applicant), Prof Susan Michie (collaborator), Dr Danielle D’Lima (collaborator)

Overview of project

In this project we are bringing together two recognised methods to develop a new innovative framework to support the creative co-design of theoretically informed interventions. The Behaviour Change Wheel methodology (BCW) informs the design of interventions based upon behavioural analysis and identification of evidence-based strategies informed by behavioural theory. Co-design informs the design of interventions through a design-led practice, through which people with lived experience interact with tools and activities to generate intervention ideas and solutions. Currently there is no guidance for how to integrate the two. 

Need for innovation

Health intervention design can be improved using both methods in tandem. There is a need to understand how to integrate theory and evidence into a design-led process without hampering creativity. This new guidance will respond to current identified challenges for intervention designers wanting to use these two methods together. 

These include: 

• how do you represent research-driven, theoretical behaviour change data, in the creative co-design process;
• how do you involve end users meaningfully in the complexities of applying behaviour change theory to the development of interventions;
• how do you reconcile solutions driven by the BCW with potentially conflicting ideas from the creative co-design process;
• how can you ensure principles of participatory research (equal power, accessibility, contextual sensitivity – responding to culture, disability, neurodivergence, etc) are inbuilt into use of the BCW, especially in the early stages, in line with current guidance for inclusivity.

Novelty of the new guidance

Our aim is to create guidance on how the Behaviour Change Wheel and co-design can be used together to design health-related services and programmes.
The guidance framework will ensure deeper, earlier engagement of patients, the public and under-represented stakeholders in the BCW process and it will support the integration of these learnings into the intervention design process in a way that supports creative ideation and innovation. The new framework will provide clarity for the intervention designer in three key areas: 

• it will guide the user in choosing how to represent a behavioural theory in the creative, collaborative co-design process in a way that is appropriate for the stakeholders and the situation.
• it will provide a menu of design-led strategies and activities to support inclusive participation of stakeholders at all stages of the BCW process. Design-led strategies respond to context, culture and stakeholder accessibility needs, this ensures inclusive participation, even of the most marginalised.
• it will allow other researchers to evaluate the methodological rigour with which the theory and co-design have been used and integrated. 

A collaborative and iterative approach

We will work with five behaviour change or design experts, two people who develop interventions (e.g., in community organisations), and seven members of the public who have experience of co-design. Together they will take part in three workshops to produce guidance on how best to combine these approaches. The framework will then be tested with users, refined, and shared more widely.