# 27 Are co-design and nudge theory friends or foes - with Colette Einfeld
Description
A cracker today with Colette Einfeld, an expert in public policy and in particular “nudge policy”. Colette is days away from a finished PhD that examines how knowledge is used in nudge and behavioural insights. Nudge theory or policy, if you haven’t heard of it, is a concept from behavioural economics, political theory and the broader behavioural science that we can harness human cognitive processes and biases to shape a group or individuals behaviour for public policy purposes. It’s become a big deal in public policy. But so has co-design, the idea that you use design methodologies to develop policies, services and systems with the people who are most affected by those policies, services and systems. The reason I reached out to Colette is that they have co-authored a very influential paper (with Emma Blomkamp) looking at the relationship between these ideas of nudge and co-design. Do they work together, or against one another? Let’s find out.
Shownotes:
The academic article from Colette and Emma Blomkamp Blomkamp: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01442872.2021.1879036#:~:text=Nudge%20is%20an%20approach%20to,to%20respond%20to%20shared%20problems.
A blog by Colette and Emma: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/07/22/the-incompatibility-of-nudge-and-co-design-as-tools-for-policymaking/
United States
