Testimonials

Xiaotong, UCL MSc Cognitve and Decision Sciences 
"Brillant. I enjoyed the project a lot. I like its practical application and the final presentation. It was great to see that the topic that I am interested in and is of interest to others and the real world. The ability to work with my academic and industrial supervisors at the same time (coordinate with different stakeholders) has improved significantly, as well as my presentation skills - how to articulate academic research into a plain and interesting story - targeting people outside academia is challenging but essential. "

Rui Wang, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application 
"Working on this project has been very meaningful to me, as it allowed me to apply what I have learnt to real-world issues that people genuinely care about. I enjoyed the process of continuously exploring new knowledge and building a framework to address such a complex question which I had not experienced before. This was also the first time I went through the full process of an ethics application, independently recruited participants, used new devices, and applied both Python and R for data processing and analysis. I ended up learning far more than I had initially expected. Most importantly, this project helped me realise my genuine interest in research, and I hope to continue having opportunities to pursue it in the future.
I would say that this will be one of the most memorable experiences of your time at UCL. Devoting yourself fully to a project and working through its research challenges is extremely rewarding, and the guidance you receive from your supervisor will be invaluable. If your goal is to grow, to apply what you have learned, and you find a project that truly interests you, then you should not miss the opportunity."

Huan, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application 
"This is a very interesting and valuable project. I learned a lot during the process. This is my first time doing a psychology experiment, so everything is new to me. The two supervisors gave me a lot of help. This is the best part of my master's degree!"

Charmi Shah, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application
Charmi Shah worked with an organisation to reduce the environmental impacts of people’s travel options and eco-labelling on journey planners. After completing the Masters', Charmi went straight into work as a Consulting Analyst at a leading marketing company, also a BIX industry partner. Charmi primarily works in the Behavioural Science team with global FMCG brands, Financial Institutions, etc. to better understand consumer behaviour.

Cecilia, UCL MSc Behaviour Change
Cecilia conducted a Qualitative study with one-to-one in-depth interviews with behavioural scientists working in the pro-environmental field. Cecilia said: "[An] opportunity to work with practitioners and see different perspectives across industry and academia. I would recommend doing a BIX project. It's a great opportunity to work with an industry partner in a topic of your interest and to gain greater perspective on the different demands and perspectives of different sectors."

Student, UCL MSc Cognitive and Decision Sciences
This student investigated whether mid-air haptics technology can help increase users' sense of agency over an interface. They conducted an experiment using ultrasound technology, which generates soundwaves that are perceived by skin receptors as gentle vibrations. They said: "It is a fantastic opportunity to work on the project which findings have applications in the real-world context. Collaborating with an organisation, greatly increases the motivation to work on the project and devote more time to it. I was able to showcase my research skills and innovative thinking. I could also display my passion for applied science. It is a perfect experience to talk about during your job interview.  It is very likely that it will be a hard and time-consuming project, but it is worth it. Overall, I learnt a lot of new skills."

Zhang, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application
Zhang looked at what influences the likelihood of a) the public trusting a medical signatory, and b) the medical signatory putting their name to a service? (looks at trust from a patient perspective). Zhang said completing a BIX project "...gives you a clear direction about what you would do for your dissertation and relived me from choosing topics. Make sure you really like the project you choose, because it does require a lot of hard work. I really enjoyed having two supervisors from totally different backgrounds, so if one is on holiday, the other is still willing to help, which is really important in the later stages of the dissertation. I will consider doing similar jobs as my industrial supervisor does. Cooperating and communicating with universities is interesting."
 

Nai-Ching Hsiao, UCL MSc Human-Computer Interaction
"An excellent opportunity to bridge the gap between academia and the business world, and engage with real-life challenges. During my project, I collaborated with a digital application start-up. My primary objective was to help the company understand how their target users interact with the app and provide design suggestions to improve user engagement. Working on this project allowed me to apply the knowledge I gained at UCL to the business world, lead an independent project, and work with different stakeholders in the business context, gaining more local experience. With expert guidance and support from UCL supervisors, I was able to face real-life business challenges with rigor and proficiency, which significantly increased my confidence in starting my career in the UK after graduating from UCL. I am grateful for this fantastic experience, which has provided me with a clearer understanding of my future career choices. This project also helped me earn a place on the Dean's List of outstanding students."

Student, UCL MSc Psychological Sciences
Found the BIX industry project ‘fun, engaging, interesting to work with industry partners’ and would recommend other students to ‘go for it’. Their project used portable non-invasive biometric devices to measure heart rate and EDA on call centre  employees and identified whether certain events throughout their working day were more stressful than others. They really enjoyed working in a team. They found the BIX project helpful to their career plans as ‘the topic of stress is very relevant to many aspects of clinical psychology.’

Tanith Archibald, UCL MSc Psychological Sciences
Tanith worked on a BIX industry project with UCL's Prof Joe Devlin, measuring workplace stress with BioStress Lab. You can read more about Tanith's project. This project earnt Tanith a place on the Dean’s List of outstanding students.  

Charlotte Walton, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application
Charlotte's project looked at the effects of food creativity and shopping frequency on food waste. She conducted online surveys using Qualtrics to research this. Charlotte says: "Working with a company provides a lot of opportunities. Not only do you get more funding for your project, but you get to have a real sense of responsibility and understand the relevance of the research you are doing in a real world context. My company supervisor was also super nice and easy to work with. It felt meaningful and exciting to work on a BIX project. If you are potentially interested in starting a career in Behavioural Science, then it's a great opportunity to gain experience and exposure. It's been really exciting to be able to share my research with a wider audience now that it's been completed. Working on a BIX project allowed me to build connections in the company which opened up opportunities such as publishing the research in their Behavioural Science Annual and presenting to one of their clients. It also got me in the loop about an available job, which I interviewed for and ended up getting! Needless to say, I'm so glad that I was able to do a BIX project as it opened up doors for me.”

Naomi Wang, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application
Naomi’s project looked at creative approaches to promote cup recycling. Naomi says “As an international student, it's a really great experience. I planned to work in a business corporate before I started the master programme, so I chose this enterprise dissertation project to see the application of psychology in the business place. My project put new and subtle behavioural science techniques to the test. The best thing is that I can receive support from two supervisors, and their feedback focused on different aspects. One is more academic and one is more practical. I would recommend BIX to students who want to work for a corporate instead of doing the research or staying in academia after graduation. Anyway, it is a great project for master's student, and thanks for everyone who brings these enterprise opportunities to us :)"

Nimisha Parashar, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application
Nimisha worked on a BIX industry project with Channel 4 and UCL's Prof Lasana Harris. Employing stereotype-inconsistent or -irrelevant information in a marketing campaign may reduce the perceived creativity of the advertisement. Here, we establish a link between stereotype and audiences’ creativity perception. In a pair of online experiments, we asked participants to rate the stereotypicality and creativity of British advertisements, as well as their intention to purchase the advertised product or service. We found a quadratic relationship between advertisement stereotypicality, creativity, and purchase intention such that advertisements perceived as low and high stereotypicality were rated as more creative and had higher purchase intention that medium stereotypicality advertisements. These results highlight the psychological mechanisms that potentially link stereotyping and creativity, as well as the implications for marketing.
Nimisha says “It is an amazing learning experience. I chose a BIX project for an opportunity to work with organisations outside the academic environment. I enjoyed the liberty that I had with working on my own project to make my own decisions. The support from my supervisors, both Industry and Academic, worked well. BIX has helped me to gain industry experience."

Pam Dang, UCL MSc in Social Cognition: Research and Application, 2020
“For our main research question we tested the effectiveness of two interventions on inducing a desired behavioural outcome (i.e., increased feedback-seeking). We also tested the relationship between feedback-seeking behaviour and various individual-differences factors (e.g. goal orientation and implicit person belief). The project provided a very practical approach to conducting scientific studies. The biggest takeaway lesson from this experience, in my personal opinion, is applying my research skills in an actual organisational setting while managing the difficulties or challenges of a field experiment. This is a great and very useful experience if you are interested in research in non-academic work setting. I enjoyed the responsibilities that come with working for an actual organisation. I also enjoyed working with and learning from my corporate supervisor. The project reassured my interest in this career path and equipped me with more necessary and relevant skills. My corporate supervisor was very helpful and supportive not only in helping me with the project but also in giving advice about career choices. Overall, it was a great experience.”

Doulos Lee, UCL MSc Cognitive and Decision Sciences
"Great opportunity to combine what you have learnt from the course and work on a practical problem from the industry. My project was on drivers of moral hazard. The topic was interesting and it was an opportunity to learn from someone plugged into industry and not to mention contribute directly to something more applied in nature. It was the best of both worlds, with academic rigour from UCL supervisor combined with how to answer industry/real life related questions/challenges."

Charmi Shah, UCL MSc Social Cognition: Research and Application, 
"The BIX project helped me understand how to apply psychological insights in the real world, to solve real world problems. It taught me how to take findings from academia and translate them into strategic insights. I have been working as Behavioural Science Consulting Analyst at Ogilvy since the last 8 months, post graduation. Being a part of the BIX project allowed to understand how a Behavioural Science unit operates within a larger organisation such as the DfT, and it taught me how to collaborate with diverse thinkers to solve real-world problems." 

Julia, UCL MSc Cognitive and Decision Sciences, 
"BIX project allowed me to develop knowledge and skills in the area of human-computer interaction, which further sparked my interest in the online choice architecture of the digital markets and how it affects users and consumers. Since September 2023, right after graduating, I have been working at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) as a Behavioural Adviser. Owing to the project I not only enhanced my quantitative research skills and writing skills, but also learnt about effective stakeholder engagement, time management and communicating to non-technical audiences. It has been a challenging project, which allowed me to learn how to face the unknowns and ask good questions."