 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Geoff Mulgan" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(July 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Geoff Mulgan | |
|---|---|
 Mulgan on 24 May 2011 | |
| Born | Geoffrey John Mulgan 1961 (age 63–64) |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford,University of Westminster |
| Employer(s) | BBC,NESTA |
| Political party | Labour Party |
| Children | 2 |
Sir Geoffrey John MulganCBE (born 1961) is Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation atUniversity College London (UCL). From 2011 to 2019 he was chief executive of theNational Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and visiting professor at University College London, theLondon School of Economics, and theUniversity of Melbourne.
Mulgan obtained a first-class degree fromBalliol College, Oxford[1] and aPhD intelecommunications from theUniversity of Westminster. He was also a fellow at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, and trained as a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka.[2]
Mulgan worked for a spell in the 1980s as a van driver for the "Labour-supporting collective of musicians and comedians known asRed Wedge",[3] opting ultimately for a career in local government and academia in the UK as well as writing on social and political issues in various newspapers and magazines in the 1990s, includingThe Independent, theFinancial Times,The Guardian, and theNew Statesman. He also worked as a reporter for BBC television and radio.
In January 2020, he was appointed as Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation atUniversity College London, to lead research intocollective intelligence.[4] Also in 2020, he joined the Nordicthink tank Demos Helsinki as a fellow.[5]
Earlier roles include:
He has founded or co-founded many organisations, including: Demos, the Young Foundation, the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), Uprising, Studio Schools Trust,Action for Happiness, the Alliance for Useful Evidence, States of Change, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Maslaha and Nesta Italia. He is a founding editor-in-chief of the journalCollective Intelligence, published by Sage and ACM.
He has been chair of various organisations including the Social Innovation Exchange;Involve; Nesta Italia; and theStudio Schools Trust. He was co-chair of the LondonLEP Digital, Science, Technology and Arts group under then London Mayor Boris Johnson. He has been a board member ofBig Society Capital and a trustee of charities includingAction for Happiness; thePhotographers' Gallery; Reimagine Europa; Luton Culture Trust; theDesign Council,the Work Foundation, Crime Concern, andPolitical Quarterly, and a member of various committees for bodies including theEuropean Commission,World Economic Forum,OECD,SITRA and theAcademy of Medical Sciences.
In 2007–2008 Mulgan was an Adelaide Thinker in Residence, advising South Australian PremierMike Rann on social innovation and social inclusion policies.[9] As a result of Mulgan's recommendations, the Rann Government established The Australian Centre for Social Innovation. From 2016 to 2019, Mulgan was a senior visiting scholar at the Ash Center in theKennedy School at Harvard University. From 2019 to 2022 he was a World Economic Forum Schwab Fellow.
Mulgan is profiled in two books:The New Alchemists (1999, byCharles Handy), andVisionaries (2001, byJay Walljasper). He was profiled by theDaily Telegraph in January 2024, prompted by evidence that when in government he had tried to cancel the Horizon Post Office software which later caused a series ofmiscarriages of justice and a major scandal.[10]
Mulgan has written a number of books, includingCommunication and Control: Networks and the New Economies of Communication (1991),Politics in an Anti-Political Age (1994),Connexity (1997),Good and Bad Power: the Ideals and Betrayals of Government (Penguin, 2006),The Art of Public Strategy (2009),The Locust and the Bee (Princeton, 2013),Big Mind: how collective intelligence can change our world (Princeton, 2017);Social innovation: how societies find the power to change (Policy Press, 2019);Another World is Possible: how to reignite social and political imagination (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2022); andWhen Science Meets Power' (Polity Press, 2024). His books have been translated into many languages.
He has written numerous reports and pamphlets forDemos, theYoung Foundation,Nesta, and Demos Helsinki. He has lectured and advised several governments on policy and strategy, and givenTED talks on the global economy, education, and happiness.
Mulgan was made aCommander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the2004 Birthday Honours for his work at the Prime Minister's Office.[11]He wasknighted in the2020 Birthday Honours for services to the creative economy.[12]
In 2010, he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Social Science byNottingham Trent University.[13] He was awarded an honorary fellowship byCardiff University in 2022.
Directors ofNumber 10 Policy Unit | ||
|---|---|---|
| Harold Wilson |
| .svg) |
| James Callaghan |
| |
| Margaret Thatcher |
| |
| John Major |
| |
| Tony Blair |
| |
| Gordon Brown |
| |
| David Cameron |
| |
| Theresa May |
| |
| Boris Johnson |
| |
| Liz Truss |
| |
| Rishi Sunak |
| |
| Keir Starmer |
| |
