Quotes by Geoff Mulgan

About Geoff Mulgan:

Geoff Mulgan is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA) and Visiting Professor at University College London, the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne. Previously he was:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Science is, rightly, searching for drugs to arrest ageing or to slow the advance of dementia. But the evidence suggests that many of the most powerful factors determining how you age come from what you do, and what you do with others: whether you wor...

Geoff Mulgan

One effect of an individualistic culture that's poor at instilling mutual respect is that people jump more quickly to anger or violence.

Geoff Mulgan

Democracy isn't solely about polite conversations in parliaments. It needs to be continually refreshed with raw passions, anger and ideals.

Geoff Mulgan

Many of the greatest composers and musicians do their best work in extreme confinement but we are seeing it in other fields - uses of technology to link people together in networks to solve problems and almost certainly we'll get better ideas than we...

Geoff Mulgan

Understanding capitalism is in some ways simple. At its best, capitalism rewards creators, makers and providers: the people and firms that create valuable things for others, like imaginative technologies and good food, cars and drugs.

Geoff Mulgan

Governments should want and even crave the best possible scientific advice. With reliable knowledge come better decisions, fewer mistakes and more results achieved for each pound spent.

Geoff Mulgan

The idea of entrepreneurship applies as much in politics, religion, society and the arts as it does in business.

Geoff Mulgan

On the environment and climate change, I suspect that future generations will think there was too much timidity, too much fear of upsetting business. Basically, New Labour was very nervous about regulating business, or requiring it to do anything, ev...

Geoff Mulgan

Big business increasingly likes to portray itself as socially concerned, adopting the style of civic action through 'campaigns' of varying degrees of cynicism.

Geoff Mulgan

The really interesting moment will be when you have a critical mass of people engaging through the networks, more than through the press and TV. When that happens, the culture of politics has to change, moving away from controlled one-way messages to...

Geoff Mulgan

The biggest barrier to dealing with climate change is us: our own attachment to habits that are hard to shift, and our great ability to park or ignore uncomfortable choices.

Geoff Mulgan

Many people leave government disillusioned about its ability to achieve change and cynical about politicians. I left with rather opposite lessons.

Geoff Mulgan

Health is already a dominant sector in most societies and the one most guaranteed to grow.

Geoff Mulgan

For most of human history, the main goal of states has been to conquer land and to achieve glory for their rulers, usually at others' expense. Then in recent decades it was all about GDP. It's only in very recent history that rulers have been willing...

Geoff Mulgan

The most important innovators often don't need any technologies - just imagination and acute sensitivity to people's needs.

Geoff Mulgan

The end of life is likely to be an important focus for innovation. Most people die in hospitals, tied up with tubes and with their bodies pumped full of drugs. Yet most would rather die at home and with more control over the timing and manner of thei...

Geoff Mulgan

Adelaide is becoming a hub for higher education.

Geoff Mulgan

Everyone knows of great projects that were too dependent on a charismatic individual, or simply too expensive to be replicated.

Geoff Mulgan

Social innovation thrives on collaboration; on doing things with others, rather than just to them or for them: hence the great interest in new ways of using the web to 'crowdsource' ideas, or the many experiments involving users in designing services...

Geoff Mulgan

The responsibility for good government lies not just with governments themselves but also with every other part of the system they operate in, including media, non-governmental organisations and the public.

Geoff Mulgan

Author Bio

  • NameGeoff Mulgan
  • DescriptionBritish political advisor
  • Born1961
  • AwardsCommander Of The Order Of The British Empire