Professor Mariana Mazzucato (PhD) holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex. Previously she has held academic positions at the University of Denver, London Business School, Open University, and Bocconi University.
Her research focuses on the relationship between financial markets, innovation, and economic growth–at the company, industry and national level.

 Between 2009-2012 she directed a large 3 year European Commission FP7 funded project on Finance and Innovation (FINNOV); her current project on Financing Innovation is funded by the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET); and her project on Finance and Mission Oriented Investments is funded by the Ford Foundation’s Reforming Global Financial Governance initiative. Her new book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking private vs. public sector myths (Anthem, 2013) was shortlisted for the prestigious Wirtschaftsbuchpreis in Germany and on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times, and Forbes. It focuses on the need to develop new frameworks to understand the role of the state in economic growth—and how to enable rewards from innovation to be just as ‘social’ as the risks taken. Professor Mazzucato is winner of the New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy and in 2013 the New Republic called her one of the ‘3 most important thinkers about innovation‘. She advises the UK government and the EC on innovation-led growth.