President Obama has issued yesterday a new Executive Order named “Behavioral Science Insights Policy Directive” to promote the use of behavioral sciences to design more effective policies.

Among the already successful applications of such  insights, the Order quotes the well known “automatic enrollment and automatic escalation in retirement savings plans” and “streamlining the application process for Federal financial aid”.

The Order prescribes, among others, to “develop strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs and, where possible, [to] rigorously test and evaluate the impact of these insights”, exactly what we work on in Cobham!

The implementation is the responsability of The Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, who provide since last year agencies with advice and policy guidance to help them execute the policy objectives. The team also released yesterday its first annual report with useful examples of nudge principles in action.