Dr. Vince Hopkins studies social policy—specifically, how we can reduce poverty and inequality by making it easier for low-income and marginalized populations to access social services. His research falls into three categories: behavioural science (e.g. judgement + decision-making), social policy analysis (e.g. income assistance + labour programs), and experimental design (e.g. field + survey experiments).

Dr. Hopkins has considerable experience in public administration. As Senior Behavioural Scientist for the Government of British Columbia, he helped ministries use behavioural science to improve public policy, supported the provincial pandemic response, and delivered workshops to hundreds of public servants. Before this, he served as a Policy Analyst with the Government of Canada’s Inuit Relations Secretariat and Treasury Board Secretariat. He has also served as a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan and a doctoral fellow at the Canadian Study of Parliament Group. Dr. Hopkins holds a PhD in political science from Simon Fraser University and an MA in public policy and public administration from Concordia University.

Designations

• PhD, Political Science, Simon Fraser University
• MA, Public Policy and Public Administration, Concordia University
• BA (Hons.), History, Dalhousie University

Vince Hopkins is currently accepting applications from new MPP students for September 2023. Please complete the online form here: www.vincehopkins.com/supervision

• Partnership Engage Grant—COVID-19 Special Initiative (collaborator) (SSHRC)
• Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship (SSHRC)
• Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement (SSHRC)
• Globalink Research Award (Mitacs)
• 2018 Doctoral Fellowship (Canadian Study of Parliament Group)

Publications

• Vincent Hopkins. 2020. “It’s coming from inside the House (of Commons): Agenda control, accountability,and interest group lobbying in majoritarian parliaments.” Governance. Available here.  
• Mark Pickup and Vincent Hopkins. 2020. “Transformed-likelihood estimators for dynamic panel models with a very small T.” Political Science Research and Methods. Available here. 
• Vincent Hopkins, Heike Klüver and Mark Pickup. 2019. “The Influence of Cause and Sectional Group Lobbying on Government Responsiveness.” Political Research Quarterly. Available here. 
• Vincent Hopkins. 2016. “Institutions, Incentives, and Policy Entrepreneurship.” Policy Studies Journal. Available here. 

In Progress 

• How Do We Know What We Know? Learning from Monte Carlo Simulations. With Andrew Q. Phillips, Guy D. Whitten, Mark Pickup, and Ali Kagalwala.
• Ambiguous COVID-19 messaging increases unsafe socializing intentions. With Mark Pickup and J. Scott Matthews.
• Proactively communicating with people who lost their job during COVID-19 increases uptake in job counseling.