Complex Social Problems Research Space receives Canada Foundation for Innovation funding

Complex Social Problems Research Space

Project Leader: Mark Pickup
Other Researchers: Edana Beauvais and Laurel Weldon

This infrastructure project will go toward developing and equipping the Complex Social Problems Research Space on the SFU Burnaby Campus, which researchers can use to develop and test interventions on how we can improve public policy, reduce political intolerance, mitigate the stereotyping and discrimination of vulnerable groups, and reverse the erosion of democratic norms. In order to achieve these goals, Pickup together with Beauvais and Weldon will co-design research through a multi-phase procedure. First, the team of behavioural and public policy scientists will conduct interviews and focus groups with government and non-government policy practitioners, and with members of the general public, to identify challenges in resolving complex social problems and potential interventions that might help address them. Based on these findings, prototype interventions will be developed and experimentally tested in a controlled research environment to evaluate their efficiency. In the final phase, the team will then work with policy practitioners to implement the interventions and assess their outcomes in field testing. 

Some of the complex social problems and interventions that will be examined include utilizing norms-based messages posted on news websites and social media to reduce the decline in support for key Canadian democratic principles. The interdisciplinary research that will take place in this research space will see collaborations with researchers from the economics and psychology fields, as well as organizations such as the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and BC’s Behaviour Insights Group.