Driving Socio-Behavioural Science in Urban Development through a Community of Practice

The Socio-Behavioral Science (SBS) Community of Practice (CoP) builds on CLC’s research experience to foster stronger knowledge sharing and awareness of social science-related research, methodologies and tools; share how SBS contributes toward concrete and impactful outcomes for the urban environment;

Backdrop to SBS CoP
Cities are where people and infrastructure intertwine. This is unsurprisingly so given the interactions residents have with each other and with the built environment. This is where Socio-Behavioural Sciences (SBS) play an integral role, to provide the scientific basis for understanding the interactions between cities and their residents. SBS tools and principles help to identify appropriate research questions, methodologies, and data required to help decision makers better understand, plan, and anticipate urban issues which are invariably, people issues.

As a Centre for creating and sharing knowledge on liveable and sustainable cities, CLC has built up our research experience in applying SBS and adopting a people-centric lens to understand the interactions amongst and between residents, and the built environment. Some of these research studies range from large-scale public surveys, targeted focus group session, to site and community-specific studies on issues such as dementia friendly neighbourhoods, planning for religious spaces, and understanding the social patterns of migrant workers.

Formation of the USS SBS CoP
First launched in September 2022, the Urban Solutions and Sustainability (USS) SBS CoP is led by CLC, and supported by the National Research Foundation, Ministry of National Development’s (MND) Research and Development Division, and the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment (MSE). The SBS CoP builds on CLC’s research experience to:

1. foster stronger knowledge sharing and awareness of social science-related research, methodologies and tools;

2. share how SBS can contribute towards concrete and impactful outcomes for the urban environment;

3. identify opportunities for agency collaboration and seed further cross-cutting research; and

4. build capabilities and a sense of community in the SBS research community across government and academia.

CLC plays a central role in coordinating participants across government agencies and academics in sharing and developing new SBS methodologies for the Infrastructure & Environment (I&E) sector. Based on a common understanding that addressing built environment challenges cannot be done solely within the MND and MSE family alone, but requires collaboration and partnerships with other social agencies, health agencies and the deep SBS expertise that resides in our institutes of higher learning (IHLs).

Each CoP session is themed according to the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) pillars. The envisioned Cities of Tomorrow (CoT) programme for RIE 2030 is organised into six key thrusts – (i) Advanced Construction; (ii) Resilient Infrastructure & Smart Facilities Management; (iii) Sustainable Built Environment; where SBS is a horizontal spanning across the next three key thrusts: (iv) New Spaces; (v) Liveability & Healthy Cities; and (vi) City in Nature.

SBS CoP sessions are open to participants from I&E and USS agencies, as well as academics and researchers from other government agencies who have experience in SBS applications. From its humble beginning comprising 10 agencies who formed the USS-RIE and Science of Cities workstreams, the SBS CoP has grown to over 40 agencies and IHLs.

Past CoP session topics addressed challenges that agencies may face in applying SBS in their area of work, brainstorming on new methodologies such as developing Future Social Archetypes, the application of SBS to address the health and wellbeing of residents, and the future of living in a net-zero city in nature. Upcoming sessions will explore topics such as participatory design and the application of Artificial Intelligence to understand and anticipate the needs and aspirations of future communities.

If you would like to participate in the next SBS CoP, please reach out to Jonas_hong@mnd.gov.sg.