How to build an ideas factory

By Mariana Mazzucato
Published on guardian.co.uk at on Saturday 9 October 2010.

The Tories have told us that they want the UK to become a "factory of ideas", fuelling the economy, and indeed the world, with new products and services. Policy and headlines so far have focused on cuts as the central plank of the economic policy. Little attention has been given to the much needed growth plan that will deliver the promised innovation and prosperity.

Biofuels and the Globalization of Risk: The Biggest Change in North-South Relationships Since Colonialism?

By James Smith

We are facing a future shaped by uncertainty. ‘Perfect storms’ of food and energy insecurity, the threat of climate change, and growing interdependencies are generating global risks of irreconcilable complexity. This coupling of uncertainty and complexity creates environmental, economic and social risks; and so-called solutions risk exacerbating problems rather than alleviating them.