Professor Dame Theresa Marteau is an Honorary Fellow of Christ’s College and the director of Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge. In 2024, she was ranked among the best female scientists in the world based on an analysis of more than 166,000 profiles of scientists across the globe. A behavioural scientist, her work focuses on the development and evaluation of interventions that aim to change behaviour to improve population health and reduce health inequalities.
Mandate
Combining the cutting-edge behavioural science of Thinking Fast and Slow and Nudge with the call-to-action of Not the End of the World or Merchants of Doubt, Professor Dame Theresa Marteau – one of the world’s pre-eminent behavioural scientists – provides a new blueprint to changing for the better the crises engulfing our world.
Why are we on-track for half the world’s population – more than four billion people – to be overweight or obese by 2035?
Why are we off-track in cutting carbon emissions, as agreed to by the vast majority of the world’s nation states at the Paris COP in 2015?
Why are we not acting on the overwhelming evidence on how to change our behaviour at the scale and speed needed to get us off these calamitous trajectories?
Without changing our behaviour billions of us will live shorter lives in poorer health, on a planet that increasingly struggles to sustain life that flourishes. Yet we have amassed enough evidence on how we can change our behaviour – but we don’t see this evidence being actioned.
Mandate brings a fresh perspective on the conundrum that sits at the heart of the book – human inaction in the face of major but actionable threats. It takes us through five lessons – Elevate Evidence, Mute the Merchants of Doubt, Engage Citizens, Regulate Policy-Making, and Elect Women – that, if heeded, can start to galvanise action. These lessons are for all – curious and concerned citizens and policymakers alike.
In doing so, it draws upon a wide range of disciplines, including behavioural science, psychology, sociology, political science, epidemiology, and climate science. Condensing decades of research, much of which is original to Prof. Marteau and her academic teams, it shows how citizens and policymakers can make a real difference.