Most of my work is about how to solve collective problems. That has led me both to big ideas, imagination and vision, and also to the challenges of practical implementation: connecting the why, the what and the how. I’ve been lucky to have worked on change from many angles: top-down in governments (in the UK, Australia and the European Commission, and as an adviser to dozens of other governments, seeing many policies have big positive impacts); bottom-up helping to foster social innovations, new organisations and community projects; in between, running two foundations and investment funds; and working as an academic, now at UCL. My PhD was on networks and technology, and I see many things through that lens. In the ideas section of this site I summarise some of the fields I’ve worked in, taking ideas into the world. Much of my day to day work involves helping governments and others to fix problems, from technology and demography to efficiency and trust. I regularly try to document and share what I’ve learned in books, articles and toolkits, talks and lectures.

My next few books stand back and provide guides to some of what’s most needed now: one on the practicalities of public innovation (from Edward Elgar); one on ‘exploratory social science’ (from OUP) to encourage universities to complement analysis and critique with work to design better options for the future; and one on collective stupidity (for Princeton) which I see as the curse of our times. Another main area of work is institutional design (with tial.org): we badly need to reimagine our public institutions at every level, and I’m frustrated by the paucity of good thinking on this, whether in universities, politics or governments.