Institute Director - Mariana Mazzucato

Mariana Mazzucato (PhD, CBE, FREcon) is Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, where she is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. She is a member of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei, and the US Council on Foreign Relations. She holds honorary doctorates from 9 top rated global universities. In 2021 she received from the Italian government the title of Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana, Italy’s highest civilian honour. 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.

She is winner of international prizes the 2024 Public Value Award, the 2020 John von Neumann Award, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values, and the 2018 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought. 

She has been listed as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business; GQ’s Top 50 most influential people in Britain; Wired’s 25 leaders shaping the future of capitalism, and by the New Republic as one of the 3 most important thinkers about innovation.

She is the author of The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (2013), The Value of Everything: making and taking in the global economy (2018), Mission Economy: a moonshot guide to changing capitalism (2021) and The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies (2023). 

She advises policy makers around the world on innovation-led inclusive and sustainable growth. Her roles have included for example Technical Expert to South Africa’s G20 Presidency and Special Representative of President Ramaphosa to the G20 Taskforce 1 on Inclusive Economic Growth, Industrialization, Employment, and Reduced Inequality, Co-Chair of the Group of Experts for the G20 Taskforce on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change, 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, Co-Chair on the Council on Urban Initiatives, Commissioner for the Jubilee Report on Addressing the Debt and Development Crises in Countries from the South, and member of the South African President’s Economic Advisory Council. Previously, through her role as Special Advisor for the EC Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation (2017-2019), she authored the high-impact report on Mission-Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, turning “missions” into a crucial new instrument in the European Commission’s Horizon innovation programme, and more recently, authored a report with the UN’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on Transformational Change in Latin America and the Caribbean: A mission-oriented approach

Website

Visit Mariana’s personal website

Words by Mariana

For a full list of publications visit Professor Mazzucato’s UCL profile.

Contact:

• For media and press enquiries for the Institute’s Director, Prof Mariana Mazzucato, contact the Director’s communications team: email the team.
• For media and press enquiries for UCL and the Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose please contact Michael Lucibella in UCL Media: email Michael.
• For event enquiries, contact the Director’s PA: contact Mariana’s PA.