Creating New Institutional Architectures - A Conversation with Sir Geoff Mulgan

Systems change, or in fact any change, in formal education
systems is notoriously hard. Research and innovation across the
sector has been historically weak. But as the stakes get higher
for much-needed change, we have to get better at harnessing the
collective intelligence of what we know, from young people to
practitioners in classrooms everyday to parents and leaders. This
week’s guest has been working at the heart of this issue since
the 1990s. Sir Geoff Mulgan is a Professor at University College
London (UCL), in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Policy
team (STEaPP) in the engineering department.  Before that he
was Chief Executive of Nesta, the UK's innovation foundation from
2011-2019. From 1997-2004 he had roles in the UK government
including director of the Government's Strategy Unit, director of
the Performance and Innovation Unit and head of policy in the
Prime Minister's office. From 2004-2011 he was first CEO of the
Young Foundation.  Geoff has been a reporter on BBC TV and
radio and was the founder/co-founder of many organisations,
including Demos, Uprising, the Social Innovation Exchange, the
Australia Centre for Social Innovation and Action for Happiness.
He has a PhD in telecommunications and has been visiting
professor at LSE and Melbourne University, and senior visiting
scholar at Harvard University.


Geoff has advised many governments, businesses, NGOs and
foundations around the world. He is currently an adviser to the
European Parliament on science and technology and a senior fellow
with Demos Helsinki. He was a senior fellow at the New Institute
in Hamburg (2020-2022) and a World Economic Forum Schwab Fellow
(2019-22). He recently chaired a European Commission programme on
‘Whole of Government Innovation’ and co-founded TIAL, The
Institutional Architecture Lab.  


Past books include ‘Good and Bad Power’ (Penguin, 2005), ‘The Art
of Public Strategy’ (Oxford University Press, 2008), ‘The Locust
and the Bee’ (Princeton University Press, 2012), ‘Big Mind: how
collective intelligence can change our world’ (Princeton
University Press, 2017),  ‘Social innovation: how societies
find the power to change’ (Policy Press, 2019), 'Prophets at a
Tangent: how art shapes social imagination' (Cambridge University
Press, 2023) and ‘When Science Meets Power’ (Polity,
2023/24).  His books have been translated into many
languages.  A summary of the books can be found here.


He is a founding joint editor-in-chief of the journal Collective
Intelligence (Sage/ACM). Many of the ideas Geoff has worked on
have gone onto become mainstream, from creative economy
strategies to social investing, open data to collective
intelligence,  experimental and evidence-based government to
challenge-driven innovation. Geoff has given TED talks on
the future economy, happiness and education. His website is
geoffmulgan.com. He has a CBE and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth
II in 2020. 


Social Links


LinkedIn: @sir-geoff-mulgan -
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sir-geoff-mulgan-aa1079187/


Website: https://www.geoffmulgan.com/