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Strategic Economics Alliance (SEA)
The Strategic Economics Alliance (SEA) is a global alliance aiming to create a stronger link between new economic thinking and new practice by elevating new voices that have been historically and structurally marginalized. The initiative sets out to establish a more direct link between women economists who are advancing new economic thinking and change-oriented practitioners, such as heads of state, ministers, and mayors. A critical component of SEA is to ensure that the lessons from these advisory experiences feed back into academic reflection, bringing academics and policymakers together to co-lead the vision and implementation of SEA. This includes collectively identifying opportunities, sharing innovations and learning, developing, and implementing new policies and programs, and analysing their implementation and impact.
SEA was launched in June 2024. As this website continues being constructed, please visit regularly for updates and more.
Objectives
- Identify and understand the link between economic theory and economic practice that leads to unequal and unsustainable outcomes
- Connect academics with practitioners to translate practice into theory, advancing new economies thinking and theories of engagement
- Create a space where new voices can be listened to, valued and reflected in policy, creating a powerful global alliance
Our Vision
We envision a global economic system that places people and the planet at its core, moving beyond traditional theories that treat systemic issues like climate change and inequality as externalities. Our goal is to revise economic theory and practice through holistic, inclusive, and sustainable approaches.
New Theory
We advocate for an economic framework that recognizes the collective creation of value and the proactive role of public institutions in shaping markets. Our approach challenges dominant economic thinking and embraces complexity, uncertainty, and interdependence, aiming for a society where everyone can thrive. Co-creation is central to our methodology, ensuring diverse voices are integrated into the strategy and scope of our economy.
New Practice
We translate new theory into real-world contexts through practice-based theorizing, which allows us to develop, refine, and test new policies effectively. By empowering governments to actively shape their markets and promote green innovation, we can address global challenges and ensure sustainable development.
New Voices
We elevate historically marginalized voices, fostering a transnational alliance of change-oriented thinkers and practitioners. By prioritizing perspectives from diverse communities, we aim to advance co-created economic theories and practices that are just and equitable.
- History
Why within the IIPP? In the last years, countless initiatives, institutions and schools of thought have challenged mainstream economics given its failure to address the most pressing issues of our time – from social and health to climate crises. The UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), founded by Professor Mariana Mazzucato in 2018, is at the forefront of this global debate on how to ensure that economies work for people and the planet and are proactively designed to be inclusive, sustainable and healthy. By collaborating with governments and multilateral organisations around the globe, it is advancing the necessary paradigm shift in economic theory and practice by reimagining the state’s role in the economy, from simply fixing market failures to actively creating a different type of capitalism. From Brazil to South Africa, to Colombia and Barbados, IIPP has co-designed and advanced modern industrial and innovation strategies oriented around climate and inclusion goals.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus established the all-female WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All to reframe health for all as a public policy objective and ensure that national and global economies and finance are structured to deliver on this ambitious goal. The Council’s final report Health for All: Transforming Economies to Deliver What Matters was published in May 2023 and is continuing to resonate with governments around the world – including in Brazil where the Portuguese translation was launched in September 2023 in partnership with the Ministry of Health and where it stands to influence Brazil’s G20 Presidency.
This background provides the perfect opportunity to harness the momentum and influence of the above initiatives, by continuing to build a global alliance of women economists from the Global South and North committed to advancing more inclusive and sustainable economies.
SEA's approach centres on bringing new economic theories to the forefront by facilitating direct engagement between innovative economists and practitioners. Building on IIPP’s methodology of practice-based theorising, SEA focuses on translating theory into practice and on strengthening the theory by drawing on real-world insights.SEA is currently funded by Co-Impact. We are currently in search of further funding.
- People
SEA is being launched in June 2024 and is led by Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Associate Professor Carolina Alves from the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.
Co-Chairs:
- Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London
- Carolina Alves, Associate Professor in Economics at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London
Advisory Board:
- Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts Amherst
- Erika Kraemer-Mbula, Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg
- Carlota Perez, Honorary Professor at Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London and the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University
- Bogolo Kenewendo, Regionalization & Just Transition Director; Special Adviser, UN Climate change High Level Champions; former Cabinet Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry in Botswana
- Usha Rao, Former Under-Secretary-General and Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- Claudia Lopez, Former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia
- Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO
- Work-streams
SEA will have two core workstreams:
- The Policy and Scaling Practice Workstream will create a space for shared learning on how to best translate new economic theory into practice in different contexts around the world. Leveraging the leadership of women in the frontlines of policymaking inspired by new economic thinking, this workstream will present an opportunity to ensure policy reflects the edge of knowledge to advance sustainable and inclusive economies.
- The Academia and Theory Building Workstream will focus on creating the space for feeding lessons from existing policy engagements back into academic reflection, fostering new voices and new collaborations between economics departments globally, with a focus on amplifying new economic research from the Global South (e.g., through research outputs, PhD training, supervision and exchanges).
Based on the spirit of “learning by doing and then reflecting”, two different workstreams will feed off of each other while engaging in significant collaborative initiatives around the globe.
- Our Alliances
- Other Resources and Events
- Industrial Strategy
- Mission-Oriented Industrial Policy
- IIPP Research Seminar Series 2022-23
- IIPP Research Seminar Series 2023-24 - Economic transitions, dualism, and informality in India: From a global South-centric lens
- IIPP Research Seminar Series 2023-24 - IIPP In Conversation Roundtable: Pluralism in Economics
- IIPP Research Seminar Series 2023-24 - Mission-oriented policy and state building for the Global Majority
Event
Contact:
Carolina Alves, Co-I of the Strategic Economics Alliance
Email: carolina.alves@ucl.ac.uk
Marcela Chapa Garza, Project Manager of the Strategic Economics Alliance
Email: marcela.chapa@ucl.ac.uk
Strategic Economics Alliance
Email: sea.iipp@ucl.ac.uk