Building Bridges Through Behavioural Insight: Steve Bickley Visits UWA

One of the most energising parts of being in academia is the chance to connect with others who share your curiosity. At the ARC Training Centre for Behavioural Insights for Technology Adoption (BITA), we believe that collaboration is essential to the way we grow as researchers, educators, and learners.

That spirit of connection was on full display during Dr Steve Bickley’s recent visit to the University of Western Australia from 28 to 30 April. Dr Bickley is a BITA Research Fellow based at Queensland University of Technology who brings a unique lens to his work by combining engineering, economics, behavioural science, and complexity theory to better understand and influence social systems. His visit was a wonderful opportunity for our BITA cohort at UWA to learn from his expertise and explore shared challenges.

During his time here, Dr Bickley joined the UWA BITA team on a field trip to the Swan Valley, met with BITA colleagues, and—most excitingly for many—delivered a hands-on workshop titled “How Can I Use AI to Help My Academic Research?” With over 110 attendees, the event sparked plenty of discussion about the rapidly growing role of AI in academic work and how we can harness these tools to deepen, rather than dilute, our research practices.

If you missed it, don’t worry—the full workshop is available to watch online:

• Part 1

• Part 2

Dr Bickley also facilitated a seminar on behavioural economics, delivered online by fellow QUT BITA researcher Dr Stephen Whyte. This session discussed ideas and cutting-edge questions in behavioural science—and again, it’s freely accessible for those who want to take a listen: Watch here.

At BITA, we’re passionate about building a community that supports knowledge creation and sharing across industries, sectors and research disciplines. We do so by building capacity in our students, researchers and partner organisations. If you are interested to connect with us on behavioural science for technology adoption, please get in contact.

The ARC Training Centre for Behavioural Insights for Technology Adoption (BITA) is an Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centre led by Queensland University of Technology in partnership with University of Queensland, University of Western Australia and industry organisations.

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You can find Steve Bickley’s profile here and Stephen Whyte’s profile here.

Email: s.bickley@qut.edu.au

For more about Steve's visit at UWA, contact German Puga: german.puga@uwa.edu.au

For more about the ARC BITA centre: ARC BITA