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/

Prophets at a Tangent: how art shapes social imagination

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