CEBEX Summer School on Behavioral Sciences 2019

- The third edition of CEBEX Summer School on Behavioral Sciences will be held in Prague from July 19 to July 27, 2019.

- Two blocks: Crash Course (3 days) and Tracks (5 days). You can choose whether to attend both or just one of them.

- 4 different tracks: Behavioral Public Policy, Evidence-Based Management, Evolutionary Behavioral Economics, and Data Analysis in Behavioral Research.

- International faculty.

- 6 ECTS for attendance.

Crash Course (July 19 – 21, 2019):

Crash Course is an intensive introductory course designed for people who have no or little experiences with behavioral sciences. During 15 hours of lectures, we will explain you the basic concepts, like Heuristics & Biases, Mental Accounting, Intertemporal Choice, Game Theory or Social Preferences.

If completed successfully, this course is awarded by 2 ECTS credits.

Study Tracks (July 22 – 27, 2019):

In 2019 we offer you four different tracks from which you can choose. Each track consists of 20 hours of lectures and 1 free day. The lecture hours are divided between theoretical background and practical workshops. If possible, we will let you spend some time in the experimental laboratory to let you try how the behavioral research is being done.

If completed successfully, this course is awarded by 4 ECTS credits.

1) The ‘Behavioral Public Policy’ track:

Policymakers around the world more and more often seek findings from behavioral sciences to inform public policies. The UK’s Behavioural Insights Team successfully demonstrated that in many cases the use of default options, social norms, or framing is the best and the most cost-effective response to various issues from diverse areas, such as health, energy, education, environment, financial products, consumer protection, or public service delivery.

2) The ‘Evidence-Based Management’ track:

People usually pay little or no attention to the quality of the evidence they rely on when they make decisions. The whole problem is boosted by the fact that people are subjects to many cognitive biases known from behavioral sciences. As a result, managerial decisions are often based on so-called ‘best practice’, ‘gut feelings’ and success stories of famous colleagues.

The track aims to address this state of affairs by teaching students where to seek relevant information and critically evaluate its validity, generalizability, and applicability to counterbalance their often biased judgment.

3) The ‘Evolutionary Behavioral Economics’ track:

Have you ever wondered why one cannot resist eating sweets at midnight, why people fear snakes, or why are our choices heavily influenced by what other people do? Answering these – at first sight silly – questions reveals that what may seem like a ‘bias’ or ‘error’, can be actually a feature tricking us into maximizing behavior.

The track uses insights from the evolutionary biology and neurosciences to go under the hood of heuristics and cognitive biases to provide a deeper understanding of human behavior that cannot be explained by behavioral economics alone.

4) The ‘Data Analysis in Behavioral Research’ track:

According to McKinsey Global Institute, around 500 terabytes of data are transmitted across borders every second. But it is not just about enormous (and yet expanding) amount of data – today, almost every organization creates its owns datasets and looks for ways how to store and analyze them correctly and effectively. So, the profund data skills are one of the most essential skills to have.

The track is aimed at helping students to understand the whole data life cycle and the many aspects of the data computing environment. You will be introduced to R – programming language and free software environment developed especially for statistical purposes. Many researchers start to switch to R from conventional statistical softwares such as SPSS or Stata.

The track focuses on how to use R during the whole data life-cycle. We will show you how to prepare data, how to do exploratory visualisation and analysis, how to use statistical functions and also how to visualize the results. And above all, how these steps interact and why they usually cannot stand without each other.

You can be sure that after finishing the track you will see data-intensive research as less complicated and quicker than ever before.

The primary goal of the summer school is to bring together people from around the globe and international experts in the field to interactively explore recent developments in the cutting-edge research in behavioral sciences. And indeed, over the past two years, the summer school welcomed 70 students from 25 different countries. The program had been taught by lecturers and practitioners from the Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Romania, and the USA.

But hey, it’s going to be in summer! So apart from the stimulating day program you might as well expect energizing evening programs.

Because we care about the program quality, interactivity, and your overall experience, a capacity of each track is limited to 15 students.

Fees:

Crash Course — students | regular:

Until April 30, 2019: 350 | 400 EUR

Until June 16, 2019: 400 | 450 EUR

Track — students | regular:

Until April 30, 2019: 1000 | 1100 EUR

Until June 16, 2019: 1200 | 1300 EUR

Crash Course + Track — students | regular:

Until April 30, 2019: 1200 | 1300 EUR

Until June 16, 2019: 1400 | 1500 EUR

The fee covers:

- accommodation in double rooms in 4* hotel in Prague city center

- access to all lectures (in your free time, you can attend also the other tracks) and experimental laboratory

- breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and coffee breaks with a delicious espresso & refreshments

- welcome package & study materials

- evening program (i.e. boat trip, beach volleyball, geolocation games, etc.)

In short, we take care of everything so that you can focus on your study.