Economist in Residence

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 highly acclaimed books include The Entrepreneurial State, The Value of Everything, Mission Economy, and The Big Con. Her forthcoming book, The Common Good Economy: A new Compass will be published by Penguin in June 2026, and is the foundation for her Public Value of Arts and Culture project.

IIPP at University College London (UCL) aims to develop a new framework for creating, nurturing and evaluating public value in order to achieve economic growth that is more innovation-led, inclusive and sustainable. This requires rethinking the underlying economics that has informed the education of global civil servants and the design of government policies. 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 housed in The Bartlett, a leading global Faculty of the Built Environment at University College London (UCL), with its radical thinking about space, design and sustainability.

PVAC is an applied research programme, directed by Professor Mazzucato, at UCL IIPP that places arts and culture at the centre of economic thinking, developing new frameworks for understanding and governing culture as long-term public investment and social infrastructure.

In this forthcoming book, Mariana Mazzucato builds on her visionary ideas of the entrepreneurial state and mission-oriented policies to establish a new theory of the common good, one which allows governments and businesses to develop purposeful economic relationships, creating value and building spaces where human flourishing can happen. She argues that how we achieve collective goals – through collaborative action, participation and reciprocity – matters as much as what those goals are. The book provides a practical ‘common good compass’ to help navigate our economies in a radically different direction. The book will be published by Penguin in June 2026.