Parvaaz means “to take flight,” and reflects our guiding principle of empowering people to rise above the challenges they face.

The Parvaaz Initiative uses insights from behavioral science research to design and scale programs that expand economic opportunity across India. We partner with governments and implementing organizations to design solutions, test them rigorously, and scale what works — bringing evidence-backed approaches directly into classrooms, communities, and the lives of the people they’re meant to help.

Our Approach

Just as R&D fuels growth in the economy, social R&D is needed to unlock new high-impact policy solutions to our world’s most pressing challenges. Social policy innovation today is disjointed: academic research rarely translates to scale, while the policies governments and NGOs implement at scale often operate without clear evidence of what works.

Parvaaz brings these two worlds together. We’re behavioral scientists and development economists who partner with governments and implementing organizations from day one to design, pilot, and scale solutions that can reach millions. Our focus is livelihoods and education, with the goal of expanding economic opportunity for the world’s poorest people. We pick big policy challenges — educational attainment, youth unemployment, drug use — and design and incubate novel solutions. Most development economics research stops at a proof-of-concept publication; we keep going, partnering with policy implementers to move solutions from pilot to scale and rigorously measure their real-world impact.

Examples of Our Work

Preventing Drug Use Among Youth Through Film-Based Curriculum

This program uses an innovative film-based curriculum to reduce drug experimentation among youth in Punjab by correcting misconceptions about addiction risk and recovery. In partnership with an internationally-renowned filmmaker, we developed engaging documentary videos featuring people sharing authentic experiences with drug use. Research shows students who completed the program were significantly more likely to believe heroin carries high addiction risk and less likely to believe willpower alone overcomes addiction. These beliefs matter because they sit at the root of experimentation and drug use — young people who underestimate addiction risk and overestimate their own ability to quit are more likely to try drugs in the first place.

The Government of Punjab is currently scaling the drug prevention program throughout all secondary schools in Punjab, reaching over 750,000 students in over 3,600 schools in just the first year. In parallel, our team is conducting a randomized evaluation of the program in over 400 Vocational Institutes across Punjab, quantifying the impact of the program on beliefs, drug use, educational progress, and employment.

Learn more about our drug prevention work.

Build for Schools: Digital Solutions to Close Learning Gaps

This program brings technology-enabled math practice directly into primary school classrooms during instructional class time. By providing practice that’s closely aligned with the classroom curriculum, tailored to each student’s level, and paired with immediate feedback, we help students catch up to grade level while reducing teacher burden. Similar approaches have shown promise in research settings, and we’re working to solve the challenges of scaling such solutions in resource-constrained contexts.

Learn more about our tech-enabled math practice initiative.

AI as a Source of New Job Creation and Firm Growth in the Modern Economy

This work focuses on providing opportunities for youth in India to build human capital and valuable skills, opening the door to employment in our modern, global economy. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly central to the global economy, we’re exploring how AI training can unlock new opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship among young people in India.

Discover our AI jobs initiative.

Collaborators

Our work would not be possible without our collaborating partners, including J-PAL South Asia at IFMR, the Department of School Education (Punjab), the Department of Technical Education and Industrial Training (Punjab), Punjab Development Commission, State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT, Punjab), Sabudh Foundation. We also thank the Agency Fund, the Fund for International Development (FID), Anthropic, and other donors for financial support. 

Contact

For more information or to partner with us, contact us at parvaaz@berkeley.edu.