Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex. She has held academic positions at the University of Denver, London Business School, Open University, and Bocconi University. Her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem, 2013) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. It focuses on the need to develop new frameworks to understand the role of the state in economic growth—and how to enable rewards from innovation to be just as ‘social’ as the risks taken. A US edition, featuring a new introduction, was published in 2015 by Public Affairs. Professor Mazzucato is winner of the 2014 New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy, the 2015 Hans-Matthöfer-Preis and in 2013 the New Republic called her one of the ‘3 most important thinkers about innovation‘.

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led growth and is currently a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisors; a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Economics of Innovation; a permanent member of the European Commission’s expert group on Innovation for Growth (RISE), a member of the UK Labour Party’s Economic Advisory Committee and a member of SITRA’s (the Finnish Innovation Fund) Advisory Panel.

Her research focuses on the relationship between financial markets, innovation, and economic growth—at the company, industry and national level. Her current projects on Innovation-fuelled, Sustainable, Inclusive Growth (ISIGrowth) and Distributed Global Financial Systems for Society (DOLFINS) are funded by the EU Horizon 2020 initiative. Between 2009-2012 she directed a large 3 year European Commission FP7 funded project on Finance and Innovation (FINNOV). Her recent project on Financing Innovation was funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and her project on Finance and Mission Oriented Investments was funded by the Ford Foundation’s Reforming Global Financial Governance initiative. She is currently working on various research projects commissioned by organizations including NASA, and the Brazilian Ministry for Science and Technology.

Her research outputs, media engagement (including a recent interview with the FT), and talks (including her TED Global talk), can be found on her website.