Geoff Mulgan
Geoff Mulgan
Geoff Mulgan CBEis Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts and Visiting Professor at University College London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne. Previously he was:...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionEducator
vigorous
Vigorous independent and critical media are indispensable in a democracy.
activity assembly civil concerns everyday helping liberties parties policies regulation rising seriously society street tide
By international standards, many of the U.K.'s policies for civil society are exemplary. However, there are concerns about constraints on civil liberties - particularly restrictions on free assembly and about the rising tide of everyday regulation has seriously impeded community activity - from organising street parties to helping children.
achieved best crave fewer knowledge mistakes possible pound reliable results scientific
Governments should want and even crave the best possible scientific advice. With reliable knowledge come better decisions, fewer mistakes and more results achieved for each pound spent.
It matters more how governments behave than how big they are.
academia brought charge civil complex crops dissecting gm government including nuclear outside people problems schools science servant solving strategy work
As a civil servant in charge of the government's Strategy Unit, I brought in many people from outside government, including academia and science, to work in the unit, dissecting and solving complex problems from GM crops to alcohol, nuclear proliferation to schools reform.
easily societies themselves
Societies can easily talk themselves into conflict and misery. But they can also talk, and act, their way out.
attic classic grand supposed
The classic think-tank is supposed to be sitting in an attic thinking up grand ideas.
bodies control death die focus full home life likely manner people pumped rather tied timing
The end of life is likely to be an important focus for innovation. Most people die in hospitals, tied up with tubes and with their bodies pumped full of drugs. Yet most would rather die at home and with more control over the timing and manner of their death.
collective turns
The market turns out to be just one special case of collective decision-making.
book government people
A lot of people in government don't really read books at all.
years justice people
Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.
thinking upset environmental
On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, even when there was a very clear social or environmental case for doing so.
technology ideas people
Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields - uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we'll get better ideas than we would from them just doing it on their own.
party capitalist-economy political
In every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties; in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.