Industrial strategy is back around the world; however, it risks reverting to old models focused on promoting specific sectors and technologies, guided by outdated economic assumptions that limit the role of the state. It is often also being advanced without a global equity or global climate action lens. IIPP’s new Strategic Economics Alliance (SEA), spearheaded by Professor Mariana Mazzucato and Dr Carolina Alves, aims to strengthen new economic thinking and its influence on economic policy, including in the area of green industrial strategy.

The climate crisis is a direct result of how we have designed our economies, and highlights the need for new economic thinking and practice. Current economic policy is severely restricted by economic theory that minimises the role of the state in shaping markets and directing growth that is inclusive and sustainable ex-ante - theory that has come predominantly from the Global North. IIPP is launching a new initiative to counteract this trend.

The SEA initiative will forge new connections between academics who are challenging mainstream economics and ambitious government and multilateral institution leaders, helping these leaders to better navigate the transition to inclusive and sustainable economies, and feeding back insights from their experience to inform economic theory. Importantly, it will provide a platform for amplifying the voices of women economists, in particular from the Global South, whose voices have been underrepresented.

The discussion begun with a keynote speech from Founding Director and Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) Mariana Mazzucato followed by a high-level panel discussion chaired by Leslie Johnston, Chief Executive Officer at the Laudes Foundation, including Carolina Alves, Associate Professor in Economics at UCL Institute of Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), Bogolo Kenewendo, global economist and former Minister of Investment, Trade, and Industry in Botswana and Erika Kraemer-Mbula, Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg.

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