We are delighted to have been awarded the opportunity to conduct a national behavioural project in universities in England.

The study will assess the effectiveness of different approaches aimed at encouraging energy-efficient behavioural change amongst students living in halls of residence.

The research will compare five different approaches aimed at encouraging energy efficiency in five universities.

This is a unique opportunity which could reach far beyond the university setting and which may be applicable internationally.

We are working with five universities to understand pro-environmental behaviours:

• Durham University
• University of Central Lancashire (UCLan)
• University of Bradford
• University of Leeds
• University of the West of England

We will develop an understanding of the drivers of habit formation and persistence through a series of face-to-face focus groups, online questionnaires and online discussion forums within the universities involved in this study.

In person, energy efficiency training will also be delivered to a small number of students from each university and retention of pro-environmental behaviours amongst this student sample will be monitored.

The relative effectiveness of each approach in encouraging pro-environmental behaviour based on the findings of this study will be assessed.

The study will run from July 2009 to December 2010. The project is supported by Defra

For further details on this study, please contact Lizzie Bone, project co-ordinator at NUS Services on 01625 413269.