Mariana Mazzucato: From Market Fixing to Market Co-creation

Mariana Mazzucato is Professor in Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL). She was awarded the 2019 Madame de Staël Prize Laureate. The jury recognised “her novel thinking, challenging conventional wisdom in the understanding of the role of the state in public policy and innovation”. 

On 8 May 2019, she delivered the above lecture entitled ‘From Market Fixing to Market Co-creation: a Mission Oriented Approach’. The speech was part of the award ceremony held at the University of Bern.

Mazzucato is founder and Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP). Her books The entrepreneurial State and The Value of Everything have been highly acclaimed by academia and the public.

Connecting Science and Society – 25th Anniversary of ALLEA

 

What role do European academies play in building bridges between the production of knowledge and its diffusion to society? How can they contribute to anchoring the values of the Enlightenment upon which scientific progress is based? ALLEA celebrated its 25th anniversary addressing those key questions through a two-day commemorative and scientific programme hosted by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences in Bern on 8-9 May.

Representatives of ALLEA Member Academies after the business meeting of the 2019 ALLEA General Assembly hosted by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. Credit: Eric Schmid

The event was part of the ALLEA General Assembly, the annual meeting of European Academies that brings together representatives of more than 50 academies from over 40 countries in Europe. This year, the programme was opened at the University of Bern with a session commemorating a quarter of a century of ALLEA on 8 May.

In his speech, ALLEA President Antonio Loprieno recalled the beginnings of ALLEA by the end of the Cold War when academies across Europe joined forces to build a new platform for interaction on the European level.

“ALLEA emerged 25 years ago in the wake of profound political changes. Changes that were taking place in Europe after 1989 and after the era of partition between the East and the West. Science became more globally interconnected and international collaboration of European academies more visible and indeed necessary,” Loprieno recalled.

As part of the anniversary session, the European Commission’s Director-General for Research and Innovation Jean-Eric Paquet delivered a congratulatory speech which reflected on the past and future of European science and the role of European academies in shaping the conditions for science and in providing science advice for the European Commission via SAPEA.

“25 amazing and exciting years when Europe and science changed tremendously, but also when science and Europe were challenged deeply and ALLEA was both witness and key actor of this remarkable period”, he remarked in his speech.


Honouring Mariana Mazzucato, 2019 Madame de Staël Prize laureate

The celebration was dedicated to memory and remembering ALLEA’s 25 years, but also to honouring forward-looking and innovative science. After the anniversary session, the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize was handed over by Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin to Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in Economics of Innovation and Public Value at the University College London (UCL), and Founder and Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP).

The award ceremony was introduced by the President of Compagnia di San Paolo Francesco Profumo and included a laudatory speech by Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council.

Bourguignon praised Mazzucato’s work on the relation between innovation and economic growth, as well as her focus on challenging common misconceptions on the functioning of markets and the role of the state in innovation. He also remarked that Mazzucato is considered as one of the “scariest economists” of today, as many have labelled her.

In her acceptance speech, Mazzucato expressed her gratitude and honour to be awarded a prize named after Madame de Staël, who “contested the status quo” of her time and challenged those who called themselves revolutionaries such as Napoleon.

In a similar spirit, she challenged in her speech those in the innovation, science and technology community who are defining sometimes uncritically what innovation means for the economy and society at large.

“What are markets? What are values? What is public value? We need to redefine how public and private come together and really question who is at the table”, she remarked.

“Is the market the same as the private sector? The market itself is an outcome of how public and private, and third sector, or civil society organisations, come together, but also how they are individually governed”, Mazzucato pointed out.

Science and Society in Present-day Europe

The discussions continued on 9 May in the scientific symposium ‘Science and Society in Present-day Europe’ dedicated to exploring the interaction between science and society from different angles and actors. Speakers remarked on the “enhanced role” of scientific actors in today’s digital society as Bourguignon highlighted in his keynote speech.

Madeleine Herren-Oesch, Director of the Institute for European Global Studies at the University of Basel, focused on the need to promote interdisciplinary knowledge and the role of social sciences and humanities in the building of new visions and narratives for the future of society.

The Global Young Academy analysed the potential for a (Re-)Enlightenment to bridge the gaps between society and science, and to address new challenges such as mistrust in science or digitalisation.

In the next session, Science et Cité introduced an interactive session on how big scientific breakthroughs such as the moon landing shape the public perception of science.

SAPEA, the consortium of European academy networks providing scientific advice to policy as part of the European Commission’s Scientific Advice Mechanism, concluded the debates with a panel session on the role of science advice in tackling microplastics pollution.

 

Picture Gallery

Video Library

Call for contributions: Open Consultation on FAIR data in the Humanities

 

Working with data in the humanities? Consider contributing to the ALLEA e-Humanities draft recommendations.

 

At the General Assembly on 8th May 2019, the ALLEA E-Humanities Working Group launched on open consultation on draft recommendations for humanities researchers working with data. The goal is to gather broad feedback from active humanities researchers and tailor the recommendations to community needs.

A link to the draft recommendations and instructions for contributing are available on the E-Humanities Working Group homepage, or can be accessed directly here: http://bit.ly/ALLEADH

 

Open consultation

The consultation is open to all researchers and practitioners working in disciplines within the humanities, policymakers and representatives of all public and private organisations working in the field. We are particularly keen to hear from humanities researchers in ALLEA academies.

The consultation is open until 15th July 2019.

 

On FAIR data

The drive to promote and support Open Science is a global phenomenon propelled by the belief that the scientific process, and the range of outputs from that process, usually supported by public funds, should be open and transparent. Open Access to publications is one aspect of this agenda. Another is that access should be made available to the data and other research outputs that emerge from research, as outlined by the FAIR principles and the research practices they enable. The context for FAIR data and research data management is rapidly evolving, and currently coalescing around FAIR data.

About the ALLEA e-Humanities Working Group

The E-Humanities working group, composed of experts from across European academies, is committed to identifying and raising awareness for priorities and concerns of the humanities, with particular attention to current and emerging developments in digital practice. Currently, the Open Science agenda figures highly in research policy and research funder requirements, and is driving changes in research practice. To address this agenda, and facilitate the adoption of Open Science across the humanities, the working group has turned its attention to supporting humanities researchers in their research data management practices.

Download the flyer on the Open Consultation

Mariana Mazzucato receives the 2019 Madame de Staël Prize

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at the University College London (UCL), honoured with the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values in Bern.

Economist Mariana Mazzucato was awarded the 2019 All European Academies Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values in Bern yesterday to honour her wide-ranging and stimulating work in the field of political economy and particularly her original contributions to understanding the role of the state in innovation. The Prize, endowed with €20,000, is supported by the foundation Compagnia di San Paolo.

Mazzucato is the sixth scholar to receive this prize, which was established in 2014 to commemorate a deep-rooted understanding of European culture as connected by an inherent diversity supported by a dynamic and vigorous intellectualism.

From left to right, Francesco Profumo (Compagnia di San Paolo), Antonio Loprieno (ALLEA), Mariana Mazzucato (University College London), Jean-Pierre Bourguignon (European Research Council), Guy Parlemin (Federal Councillor).

Antonio Loprieno, ALLEA President and chairman of the Prize jury, praised the distinctive career of Mazzucato. “Her scholarly work is characterised by both ingenuity and vision. With a thorough and incisive analysis, she has dug into the understanding of innovation, shedding light on the interplay between the state, business and research in our modern economy. Reminiscent of the critical mind shown by Madame de Staël, the jury honours Mazzucato as an outstanding scholar who is both helping to shape new narratives for Europe while strengthening our common values.

The award ceremony took place on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities, during a solemn session hosted by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Humanities at the University of Bern. Mazzucato received the prize from the hands of Swiss Federal Councillor Guy Parmelin. The ceremony was introduced by Francesco Profumo, President of the Compagnia di San Paolo, and Jean-Pierre Bourguignon, President of the European Research Council, who delivered the laudatory speech.

ALLEA 25th Anniversary: Livestream available

ALLEA and the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences will provide a livestream for the events taking place on the occasion of the ALLEA 25th Anniversary on 8-9 May 2019 in Bern.

The events that will be available via livestream include the jubilee speeches and the Madame de Staël Prize for Cultural Values award ceremony to be held on 8 May, as well as the four different sessions of the scientific symposium ‘Science and Society in Present-day Europe’ which will be taking place on 9 May.

The livestream will be accessible on 8 May from 18:00 to 20:00 and on 9 May from 10:30 to 17:30 through this link. You can check the full programme of activities for the ALLEA 25th Anniversary celebrations here, and the full list of speakers here.