Project team

Dr Antonio Silva is the Head of Social Cohesion at the Behavioural Insights Team. Since joining BIT in 2013, Antonio has led over 30 randomised control trials across a range of policy areas, including education, loneliness and crime. He designed one of the world’s first robust evaluations of counter-radicalisation programmes and is currently leading the design of large scale interventions in the UK and overseas to bring together communities through building empathy and reducing prejudice. Antonio completed his PhD in Evolutionary Anthropology at University College London on the interplay between cooperation and conflict in the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland.

Dr David Halpern is the Chief Executive of the Behavioural Insights Team. David has led the team since its inception in 2010. Prior to that, David was the first Research Director of the Institute for Government and between 2001 and 2007 was the Chief Analyst at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit. David was also appointed as the What Works National Advisor in July 2013. He supports the What Works Network and leads efforts to improve the use of evidence across government. Before entering government, David held tenure at Cambridge and posts at Oxford and Harvard. He has written several books and papers on areas relating to behavioural insights and well-being, including Social Capital (2005), the Hidden Wealth of Nations (2010), Online Harms and Manipulation (2019) and co-author of the MINDSPACE report. In 2015, David wrote a book about the team entitled Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference.

Professor David Voas is a professor at University College London, where he led the UCL Social Research Institute until 2020. He is a demographer and sociologist of religion. David was the European Values Study national programme director for Great Britain from 2008 to 2020 and served on the EVS Executive Committee for most of that period. He is active in quantitative and theoretical research on beliefs and attitudes in modern societies.

Dr Kirstie Hewlett is a Research Associate at the Policy Institute, King’s College London. She works across a wide range of social policy areas, with interests in inequalities, social division and equality of opportunity, and the role of values, emotion, identity and trust in policy making. In addition to her work on WVS, she is also a contributor to the Deaton Review on inequalities in the twenty-first century and the H2020 PERITIA project, which studies the affective dimensions of trust in expertise. She has published on a broad range of topics including polarisation, attitudes to immigration, research impact and freedom of expression, and has led evidence reviews and qualitative research for clients including Arts Council England and the Burberry Foundation on cultural programmes that aim to address equality of opportunity.

Prof. Roger Mortimore is Professor of Public Opinion and Political Analysis at King’s College London and Ipsos MORI’s Director of Political Analysis. Since joining MORI in 1993 he has concentrated on political and electoral research in particular, as well as survey methodology, and has been extensively involved with MORI’s opinion polling at each of the last seven general elections, in particular with the highly successful exit polls. His recent publications include Butler’s British Political Facts with Andrew Blick (Palgrave, 2018, the latest edition of a standard reference work on British politics and political history), Explaining Cameron's Catastrophe with Robert Worcester, Paul Baines and Mark Gill (IndieBooks, 2017) and, as co-editor with Dominic Wring and Simon Atkinson, Political Communication in Britain: Campaigning, Media and Polling in the 2017 General Election (Palgrave, 2018). He is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Political Marketing.

Suzanne is a highly skilled qualitative researcher with 20 years of public policy research experience. She led the qualitative research team at Ipsos MORI, an independent research agency, from 2013 and in that role was responsible for skills development, growing the business and embedding new and innovative approaches to solving policy problems with a focus on deliberative, participatory, ethnographic and digital methodologies. Suzanne has worked for both national and international clients across a range of policy areas including trust in government and polarisation, the value of evidence, work and welfare, ageing and inequality. As Director of Engagement at the Policy Institute, Suzanne is responsible for embedding qualitative and deliberative methods in the work of the Policy Institute, and developing new, innovative approaches to involving citizens in policy making, ensuring the work it does continues to have impact. Suzanne also represents the Policy Institute on the Ageing Research at King's (ARK) Committee

Paul Stoneman is a political scientist who specialises in issues of trust and democracy as well as public understanding of science. He has previously worked for the National Centre for Research Methods as a Senior Research Fellow and has many years experience as a lecturer in quantitative methods. Paul's professional activities have consistently involved working across disciplinary divides in the social sciences as well as consistently working with both qualitative and quantitative research methods and techniques. Paul passionately believes in conducting research that will engage with and inform the knowledge and practices of non-academic audiences, and has many years' experience working with political authorities, third sector organisations, as well as business and industry.

James Wright is a quantitative research assistant at the Policy Institute, working across several areas of research. James has received academic training in both quantitative and qualitative research methods, and has previously engaged with varied topics including housing quality and homelessness, social inequalities, and gender, sexuality, and masculinity. Before joining the institute, James spent time working within the homelessness and housing advice charity sectors. During this time, James gained experience in database management, monitoring & evaluation, and conducting research within the charitable sector, as well as providing hands on support and advice. James supports the institute by conducting quantitative research and analysis on a range of projects, and contributing to the reporting and communication of quantitative analysis.