This autumn, the inaugural NS/Speri Prize was awarded to Mariana Mazzucato of the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex. It rewards “the scholar who has succeeded most effectively over the preceding two or three years in disseminating original and critical ideas in political economy to a wider public audience” and includes the invitation to deliver a lecture. This is an edited extract from that speech.
What makes the iPhone so smart? Was it only the genius of Steve Jobs and his team and the visionary finance supplied from risk-loving venture capitalists? No. In my book The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public v Private Sector Myths, I tell the missing part of that story by analysing the public funds that allowed the smartphone to be created. The research programmes that made the internet, touch-screen displays, GPS and the Siri voice control possible all had government backing.
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