Founder of the Curiosity Incubator and leading the Learning Portfolio for the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose, UCL. Affiliated with the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College, Cambridge

Bridget Gildea is a consultant working at the nexus between applied learning, technology, behavioural insights (BI) and public policy, including building innovation in government programmes, applying behavioural science approaches to learning and skills and knowledge acquisition, thinking about the future of work and social justice, and creating international higher education collaborations and partnerships.

She is the Founder of the Curiosity Incubator | Accelerator for Good, which launched at the Intellectual Forum, and takes the entrepreneurial incubation and acceleration methodology and applies it to problems in the public good sphere.

She also leads the Applied Learning portfolio for the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL, headed by Professors Mariana Mazzucato, Rainer Kattel and David Eaves, and has a portfolio as a freelance Consultant for Public Good, working on the application of behavioural science in the For Good universe.

Recent projects included working with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on its policy work, the European Climate Foundation on applying behavioural science to its climate initiatives, and with Cambridge, designing projects e.g. on data orchestration models in cities’ response to Covid-19 to help better support their most vulnerable citizens.

Previously as the Director of Programme Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, she founded policy executive education programmes, including the world’s first applied learning programme teaching behavioural insights in public policy. She also created partnerships with the MacArthur Foundation, for a programme on BI and corruption control in Nigeria; with the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Berlin for a programme at Harvard for Members of the Bundestag, and a 5-year partnership with the National School of Government in Brazil.

Before this, she had several roles and careers including at the BBC, the British Film Commission, and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office US Network.