About Us
Find our more about Public Value of Arts and Culture (PVAC).
People:
Mariana Mazzucato 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) and the Italian Academy of Sciences Lincei.
Alexander (Sasha) Reviakin is a Programme Manager at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), leading the Institute’s work on the Public Value of Arts and Culture. He has worked on public sector transformation across the Middle East and North Africa, and more recently in the UK. He has an MPA in Innovation, Public Policy and Public Value from University College London (UCL) and BA in Arabic, International Relations and History of Art from the University of Durham, UK.
Christopher De Venecia is a student in the 2025-26 cohort of UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)'s Master of Public Administration (MPA).
He is a believer in fostering creative cities, in leveraging creative economy for grassroots development and nation-building, and envisions the Philippines becoming the #1 creative hub in the whole ASEAN by the year 2030. His mantra: #TheFutureIsCreative.
Partners:
PVAC Working Group
The PVAC Working Group is a high-level collective convened by Professor Mariana Mazzucato at IIPP.
PVAC is supported by a high-level Working Group bringing together policymakers, funders, cultural leaders, artists, curators, and practitioners. The group helps to shape the direction of the work, test assumptions, surface real policy questions, and connect programme outputs to the decisions that shape investment and strategy. Its composition will evolve as the work develops.
Brazilian Ministry of Culture
In February 2026, UCL IIPP was hosted by Brazilian Minister of Culture Margareth Menezes and Secretary for the Cultural Economy Cláudia Leitão to launch a three-year partnership on the Economics of Carnival as a year-round social infrastructure and system of production.
Read more here:
Memorandum of Understanding - Brazilian Ministry of Culture and UCL IIPP
Brazil’s Ministry of Culture (MinC) and UCL IIPP are launching a groundbreaking international field research project examining the social, cultural, and economic value of Carnival.
Funders
Seed funding for the Public Value of Arts and Culture (PVAC) project is provided by UCL’s AHRC Impact Acceleration Awards.
Contact
Principle Investigator and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value
Click to email. iipp-dir-comms@ucl.ac.uk
Programme Manager