Blog | geoffmulgan

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Dec 14, 2020
1 min

Steering through capability (& the advantages of not crashing or stalling)

HOW GOVERNMENTS CAN - AND SHOULD - STEER THEIR SOCIETIES Can a society be steered? Should governments even try to do that? Or should they...

Geoff Mulgan

Nov 18, 2020
2 min

The case for exploratory social science

Should the social sciences only analyse the past and present? Or should they also try to help design the future? The recently created New...

Reforming Tax: why it's a vital part of any just transition

Geoff Mulgan

Oct 3, 2020
8 min

Reforming Tax: why it's a vital part of any just transition

The tax relationship lies at the core of politics. Getting it right unlocks possibilities of all kinds. Getting it wrong creates blockage...

Net zero: integrating data, digital & radical carbon reduction strategies

Geoff Mulgan

Sep 8, 2020
8 min

Net zero: integrating data, digital & radical carbon reduction strategies

Achieving serious reductions in carbon emissions is arguably the greatest engineering challenge of the century. It requires changes to al...

A Mini Meta Manifesto – Three Ingredients to Add to Every Policy

Geoff Mulgan

Aug 27, 2020
3 min

A Mini Meta Manifesto – Three Ingredients to Add to Every Policy

Here I suggest a brief meta-manifesto: principles for reform and action that should now apply to many, if not most, areas of government a...

The curse of the intangibles - a short analysis of what might be going wrong in Britain

Geoff Mulgan

Jul 22, 2020
6 min

The curse of the intangibles - a short analysis of what might be going wrong in Britain

Britain was the first country to industrialise and then became the first industrial country to become post-industrial, its economy ever m...

The case for mesh governance (or how government can escape the old organograms)

Geoff Mulgan

Jul 16, 2020
5 min

The case for mesh governance (or how government can escape the old organograms)

Every country in the world struggles with the same problem: how to coordinate and align the actions of different tiers of government – na...

1997 and 2020: what they meant and what lies ahead

Geoff Mulgan

Jul 14, 2020
6 min

1997 and 2020: what they meant and what lies ahead

I was asked on the BBC Analysis programme this month to reflect on whether 1997 represented a turning point in British politics, and what...

A loop theory of wisdom - how do we respond to foolish times?

Geoff Mulgan

Jul 1, 2020
4 min

A loop theory of wisdom - how do we respond to foolish times?

Is it possible for an organisation, a system or a society, to become wiser? If so, how could we make this real and not just a vague invoc...

Racism/anti-racism: how movements move & how to avoid binary thinking

Geoff Mulgan

Jun 17, 2020
6 min

Racism/anti-racism: how movements move & how to avoid binary thinking

The extraordinary sight of the BLM movement taking off all over the world has been invigorating. History is being talked about seriously;...

Elephant safaris: organising meetings that help us grasp complexity

Geoff Mulgan

Jun 9, 2020
3 min

Elephant safaris: organising meetings that help us grasp complexity

"Reality is one, though wise people speak of it variously" Rig Veda You may be familiar with the ancient Indian story of the blind men a...

Impossible and inevitable: the twisting road to global governance

Geoff Mulgan

Jun 2, 2020
15 min

Impossible and inevitable: the twisting road to global governance

The current crisis has shown up just how weak many global institutions have become – with most of the work of containing COVID-19 done by...

Geoff Mulgan

May 14, 2020
5 min

SOCIAL IMAGINATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

This is a blog I wrote for the Campaign for Social Science, as part of a series about responses to Coronavirus. Crises – whether wars or ...

If you're running Zoom/Teams/Hangout meetings please spend 5 minutes reading this first ...

Geoff Mulgan

May 4, 2020
10 min

If you're running Zoom/Teams/Hangout meetings please spend 5 minutes reading this first ...

This blog is about better meetings: it sets out some of what is known about how meetings can make the most of collective intelligence. I...

Geoff Mulgan

May 1, 2020
4 min

The Game Changer Beyond AI

This is a piece just published by Project Syndicate 'One might not know it, judging by all the doom and gloom in the press, but there are...

Can government think? A lecture on understanding government as a brain

Geoff Mulgan

Apr 28, 2020
2 min

Can government think? A lecture on understanding government as a brain

I was due to give a keynote this month at the annual conference of the Bennett Institute in Cambridge University. The conference was pos...

Could Covid-19 accelerate new social contracts around data?

Geoff Mulgan

Apr 23, 2020
8 min

Could Covid-19 accelerate new social contracts around data?

Data has become a crucial battleground in the war against Coronavirus, as many countries have used sophisticated methods for gathering an...

The imaginary crisis - and how we might quicken social and public imagination

Geoff Mulgan

Apr 8, 2020
4 min

The imaginary crisis - and how we might quicken social and public imagination

I've been working recently on the topic of social imagination: what is it, why is it so difficult now, and how can it be encouraged. Dem...

How should government manage big risks – pandemics to financial shocks?

Geoff Mulgan

Apr 8, 2020
7 min

How should government manage big risks – pandemics to financial shocks?

The COVID-19 crisis has been an extreme stress test for governments around the world, with widely varying performance so far. I’ve alread...

How not to waste a crisis - possibilities for government after COVID-19

Geoff Mulgan

Mar 27, 2020
1 min

How not to waste a crisis - possibilities for government after COVID-19

Wars are always dramatic accelerators of change. So are crises of any kind. Coronavirus could turn out to be just be a one-off blip, with...

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