About the lecture:
How can we shape public institutions better suited to the challenges of the next decade – globally, in nations and in cities (and without using a chainsaw)?
Our societies are shaped by public institutions – from parliaments to primary schools, regulators to ministries. But there’s a widespread perception that they have stopped evolving. While business and civil society have invented radically different organisational models- from Tiktok to Wikipedia – most public sector institutions look very similar to 30, 50 or 100 years ago. This lecture will diagnose the problem, share examples of more innovative approaches around the world tackling topics like climate change, mental health and AI, and describe how the next generation of institutions could be designed, making the most of ideas from computer science to biology as well as public administration.
About the speaker:
Sir Geoff Mulgan is Professor in UCL’s STEaPP. He has worked in many governments (including London and the European Commission as well as serving as director of the UK Government's Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister's office). He has worked in civil society helping create many NGOs and also as CEO of Nesta, the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and the Young Foundation. He has pioneered fields including social innovation, collective intelligence and the creative economy. Past books include ‘Big Mind: how collective intelligence can change our world’ (Princeton UP), ‘Another World is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination’ (Hurst Publishers/Oxford University Press, 2022) and ‘When Science Meets Power’ (Polity Press, 2023).
