The CREATE Programme

Complexity is now the norm in public sector service provision, and organisations serving the public sector are increasingly confronted with "wicked problems" that demand new, adaptive ways of thinking. To meet this challenge, the BSPHN is proud to introduce the CREATE Programme.

This BSPHN-led initiative, developed in association with social impact agency, Magpie, will stimulate engagement and shared learning between behavioural science and the creative arts to help deliver the BSPHN’s mission of promoting the use of behavioural science to deliver more effective, efficient, and equitable public services.

Why Combine Behavioural Science and the Arts?

‍Data and behavioural insights tell us what needs to change and why, but it is creativity that turns these insights into communications, programmes and stories that produce emotionally transformative change.

We believe that the behavioural sciences and the arts have much to benefit from engaging deeply with each other.

The arts can benefit behavioural science by:

• Emphasising empathy over information: While behavioural science is excellent at identifying barriers to change, the arts can actively dismantle these barriers by connecting with people on a profound emotional level.
• Multisensory engagement: Creative interventions create "sticky" memories that drive long-term change far more effectively than traditional, static messaging or institutional leaflets.
• Trust building: Collaborating with artists brings a level of authenticity and true "lived experience" to interventions that top-down messaging often lacks.
• Innovation in complexity: When facing complex problems where linear, top-down thinking fails, creativity allows us to experiment and discover innovative, "sideways" solutions.

The arts can benefit from engaging with behavioural science by:

• Targeted, Evidence-Based Action: Behavioural science uses data to pinpoint exactly what needs to change and why. This provides creative professionals with a clear, evidence-based foundation to design interventions that dismantle specific psychological or systemic barriers.
• Proving Measurable Value: Integrating behavioural metrics allows the arts to empirically demonstrate their impact, proving that creativity is a practical tool for serious change.
• Tackling "Wicked Problems": By bridging clinical evidence with the "messy, beautiful reality of the human experience," artists and scientists can work together to find innovative, "sideways" solutions to deep-rooted, complex societal issues.
• Mainstreaming Creative Health: Partnering with behavioural science helps move the arts from the periphery to the centre of public systems, supporting a shift toward embedding creativity directly into mainstream regional health and social care infrastructures.

CREATE’S Objectives

‍By exploring and championing the intersection of these fields, the CREATE Programme will:

• Facilitate meaningful dialogue between artists, scientists and the organisations that develop and represent them.
• Disseminate good and innovative practice across different sectors.
• Reduce replication of efforts by sharing learnings.
• Build robust partnerships between the creative health, public sector, and behavioural science communities.

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