Prof. Mazzucato and Minister Cuerpo launch Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century

Barcelona, 18 April 2026—Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Carlos Cuerpo, Spain’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Trade and Business, today launched the Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century in Barcelona. The Council will bring together a group of internationally leading economists to challenge the cross-cutting assumptions in economic theory and modelling that constrain progress on the biggest issues of our time, and to set out updated economic principles with practical implications for policy design, institutional practice, and multilateral reform.

Across the world, economic orthodoxies have failed to deliver opportunity, security, and dignity for the majority. For decades, a narrow set of assumptions — that markets self-correct, that governments should stand back, that growth will trickle down — have been treated not as theories but as facts. They have shaped how budgets are designed, how institutions are evaluated, and what counts as responsible governance. The consequences are visible everywhere: housing that working families cannot afford, public servicesstretched to breaking point, and a climate transition that stalls because it is treated as a cost rather than an investment. Meanwhile, reactionary forces exploit these failures, spreading misinformation and stoking fear to threaten the hard-won rights of the last century.

Yet the evidence increasingly shows that a different approach works. Where progressive governments have directed public investment with purpose, structured labour markets to provide security, and treated the green transition as anopportunity rather than a burden, the results speak for themselves: stronger growth, more stable employment, expanded renewables, a strengthened welfare state, and a sounder fiscal position. These outcomes are not achieved despite progressive economic policy, but because of it.

The Council proposes an intervention at the level of economic thinking itself. Important work has been led by commissions and high-level panels on specific issues, including tax, inequality, debt, climate, water, biodiversity, and health. The Council complements these efforts by addressing the cross-cutting assumptions that constrain progress across all of them, while learning from and scaling positive examples of progressive economic policy already at work.

The Council’s work is organised around the common good — not as a slogan but as an operational framework thatreshapes economies work in the first place: who they serve, what they reward, and whose voice counts. The Council’s conceptual framework draws on Mazzucato’s forthcoming book, The Common Good Economy: a new compass (2026). It rests on four interdependent principles: justice, equality, sustainability, and global solidarity. Its inquiry will cover eight cross-cutting areas of economic thinking from what we value and measure, to how finance serves the economy, what fiscal responsibility actually requires, what state capabilities must be rebuilt, in whose interests does governance serve, how should value be created and shared to reduce inequality from the start, whose lived experience counts in policy design, and how to harness the power of technology and AI for the common good.

The Council will be co-chaired by Professor Mazzucato and Minister Cuerpo, with the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) as its main academic partner and the Government of Spain as inaugural host. Its membership, drawn from leading economists across the Global North and South, will be announced in due course. Finance ministers, senior policymakers, labourrepresentatives, and communities will be engaged throughout the inquiry, grounding it in lived outcomes.

The Council will hold its first meeting in summer 2026 and convene in person on the sidelines of key global events,including the World Bank–IMF Annual Meetings and COP. A second in-person meeting is planned for Madrid in spring 2027, with updated economic principles and an associated reform agenda to be finalised by autumn 2027.

Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and Co-Chair of the Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century, said:

“For decades, a narrow set of assumptions — that markets self-correct, that governments should stand back, that growth will trickle down — have been treated not as theories but as facts. They have shaped budgets, hollowed out institutions, and constrained governments that sought to govern differently. This Council proposes an intervention at the level of economic thinking itself. The common good is not a slogan — it is an operational framework for reshaping how markets work in the first place: who they serve, what they reward, and whose voice counts.”

Deputy Prime Minister of Spain, Carlos Cuerpo, welcomed Spain’s hosting of the Council:

“Spain provides a compelling example that economic growth and modernisation can be pursued alongside environmental, fiscal, and social responsibility. We are proud to be hosting this Global Council, and we will bebringing precisely this perspective to the table, contributing to a broader reflection on how competitiveness, sustainability, and social cohesion can be understood as mutually reinforcing pillars of a more resilient and forward-looking economic model.”

The full concept note laying out the purpose of the Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century and its areas of inquiry is available here:

• Link to concept note

Launch Event at Global Progressive Mobilisation, Barcelona on 18th April 2026

Video: Agora Ernest Lluch: Reclaiming the Economy – Green Industrial Policy Beyond Neoliberalism
Speakers: Prof Mariana Mazzucato, Prof Isabella Weber, Manuel de la Rocha Vázquez, Deputy First Miniter Carlos Cuerpo, and Dario Carnevalli Durigan
Description: Prof. Mariana Mazzucato discusses how green industrial policy can move economies beyond neoliberalism, arguing for an active, mission‑oriented role of the state in driving sustainable and inclusive growth.

For interviews or further information, please contact:

Sol Hallam, Director’s Head of Communications, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Email: sol.hallam@ucl.ac.uk Mob: +44 7503 575 719

GPM press contact: o.cavadas@psoe.es

Notes to Editors

About the Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century:

The Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century is a new international council of leading economists, co-chaired byProfessor Mariana Mazzucato and Carlos Cuerpo, Spain’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, Trade and Business. Its main academic partner is the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP). It is hosted by a coalition of governments beginning with the Government of Spain (Ministry of Economy, Trade and Business). The Council organises a structured theory-to-practice inquiry across eight cross-cutting areas of economic thinking, with the aim of updating the economic principles that underpin policy design, institutional practice, and multilateral reform. Its conceptual framework draws on Mazzucato’s forthcoming book, The Common Good Economy.

About Deputy Prime Minister Cuerpo: Appointed Deputy Prime Minister in March 2026, Carlos Cuerpo also serves as Minister of Economy, Trade and Business, where he leads economic policy design and implementation in continental Europe´s fourth largest economy.

Prior to his appointment as Economy Minister in 2023, Cuerpo held two senior positions within the ministry. As the Secretary General of the Spanish Treasury, he oversaw the country’s public debt management in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and represented Spain in international institutions and fora, including the G20 and the International Monetary Fund. Prior to that, he was Director General of Macroeconomic Analysis, leading the ministry´s economic forecasting and research unit.

Cuerpo began his career as a civil servant in 2008 as a member of the Spanish Corps of State Economists. He alsoworked for the European Commission in Brussels and Spain’s Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (AIRef), the national fiscal watchdog.

He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, a master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Universidad de Extremadura

About Professor Mariana Mazzucato:

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD, CBE, FREcon) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at UniversityCollege London (UCL), where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose. She is winner of international prizes including the Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in 2021, Italy’s highest civilian honour, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei. In 2025, she was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to economics in the King’s Birthday Honours List. Pope Francis appointed her to the Pontifical Academy for Life for bringing ‘more humanity’ to the world.

As well as The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), she is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (2018), Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to ChangingCapitalism (2021), The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023), and the forthcoming, The Common Good Economy: A New Compass (2026). She advises policymakers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her roles have included for example Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health for All, Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council, Co-Chair of the Group of Experts to theG20 Task Force for the Global Mobilization against Climate Change, and Special Representative of President Ramaphosa to the G20 Taskforce 1 on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialization, Employment, and Reduced Inequality.

About the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP):

The Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) at University College London (UCL) brings together cutting-edge academic theory with teaching and policy practice, to rethink the role of the state in tackling some of the biggest challenges facing society.

IIPP works with partners to develop a framework which challenges traditional economic thinking, with the goal of creating, nurturing and evaluating public value in order to achieve growth that is more innovation-led, inclusive and sustainable. This requires rethinking the underlying economics that have informed the education of global public servants and the design of government policies.

IIPP’s work feeds into innovation and industrial policy, financial reform, institutional change and sustainable development. A key pillar of IIPP’s research is its understanding of markets as outcomes of the interactions between different actors. In this context, public policy should not be seen as simply fixing market failures, but also as actively shaping and co-creating markets. Re-focusing and designing public organisations around mission-led, public purpose aims will help tackle the grand challenges facing the 21st century.

IIPP is uniquely structured to ensure that this ground-breaking academic research is harnessed to tackle real world policy challenges. IIPP does this through its high-quality teaching programme, along with its growing global network of partners, and the ambitious policy practice programme.

IIPP is a department within UCL — and part of The Bartlett, ranking number one in the world for architecture and the built environment.