The 2017 Highways England Symposium on Road User Behaviour took place on 14 to 15 March 2017 at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire.

The event drew together a wide range of perspectives on behaviour as it relates to road risk, reflecting available good practice from associated domains. All of the presentations have been made available online here.

Inspired by the expert input from researchers, practitioners and funders and by insights shared by those working in other sectors, membersof the organising committee have collaborated on an authored think-piece, 'Paving the Way, putting behaviour change at the heart of a safe system',  which sets out a high-level vision for a refreshed approach to behaviour change in road safety, and proposes actions that leaders in the sector can be taking now.

The aim of this paper is not to summarise the wide-ranging and diverse perspectives shared and discussed at the event – probably an impossible task – but to offer a response to them.

Highways England want to develop a long term engagement programme with academic researchers, delivery partners and research funders. This engagement programme will contribute to improved road safety outcomes by:

• Driving fresh insights into issues of strategic concern based on the most recent research in road safety and other domains, particularly behaviour change.
• Clarifying priorities for future research to make travel by roads safer.
• Fostering conversation, connection, interdisciplinarity and innovation across the road safety research community, to unlock new insights and perspectives.
• Providing a pipeline of professionals engaged in road safety research.