Demos Staff overview
Charles Leadbeater
- Telephone
- charlie@charlesleadbeater.net
Charles' latest talks:
Demos Care Conference (mp3) March 21.2007
London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise, Inaugural lecture (mp3) March 19, 2007
Charles Leadbeater is a leading authority on innovation and creativity. He has advised companies, cities and governments around the world on innovation strategy and drawn on that experience in writing his latest book We-think: the power of mass creativity, which charts the rise of mass, participative approaches to innovation from science and open source software, to computer games and political campaigning.
We-think, which is due to be published in 2007, is the latest in a string of acclaimed books: Living on Thin Air, a guide to living and working in the new economy; Up the Down Escalator, an attack on the culture of public pessimism accompanying globalisation and In Search of Work, published in the 1980's, which was one of the first books to predict the rise of more flexible and networked forms of employment.
In 2005 Charles was ranked by Accenture, the management consultancy, as one of the top management thinkers in the world. A past winner of the prestigious David Watt prize for journalism, Charles was profiled by the New York Times in 2004 for generating one of the best ideas of the year, the rise of the activist amateur, outlined in his report The Pro-Am Revolution.
As well as advising a wide range of organisations on innovation including the BBC, Vodafone, Microsoft, Ericsson, Channel Four Television and the Royal Shakespeare Company, Charles has been an ideas generator in his own right. As an associate editor of the Independent he helped Helen Fielding devise Bridget Jones's diary. He wrote the first British report on the rise of social entrepreneurship, which has since become a global movement.
Charles has worked extensively as a senior adviser to the governments over the past decade, advising the 10 Downing St policy unit, the Department for Trade and Industry and the European Commission on the rise of the knowledge driven economy and the Internet, as well as the government of Shanghai. He is an advisor to the Department for Education's Innovation Unit on future strategies for more networked and personalised approaches to learning and education.
A visiting senior fellow at the British National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts, he is also a longstanding senior research associate with the influential London think-tank Demos and a visiting fellow at Oxford University's Said Business School.
Charles spent ten years working for the Financial Times where he was Labour Editor, Industrial Editor and Tokyo Bureau Chief before becoming the paper's Features Editor. In 1994 he moved to the Independent as assistant editor in charge of features and became an independent author and advisor in 1996.
Charles's current research focuses on how mass, user driven innovation is reshaping organisations, with users increasingly co-creators of products and services. He is also exploring the emergence of China, India and Korea as sources of research and innovation, through a two-year, £350,000 research programme, the Atlas of Ideas, funded by the British government and a consortia of companies.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Perri 6
- Publication Date
- 1997-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The author argues that employee ownership and equity based pay will be vital to creating the networked, knowledge-creating company of the future.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Kate Oakley
- Publication Date
- 2001-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The authors make a series of radical policy proposals – notably that the DTI should be demerged – which are designed to ensure the UK maintains its competiveness in the knowledge economy.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Kate Oakley
- Publication Date
- 1999-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The authors recommend policy approaches to help provide new cultural entrepreneurs with a firmer base to build upon.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Ian Christie
- Publication Date
- 1999-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
This book shows how mutuals could form an important part of the twenty-first century economy.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Sue Goss
- Publication Date
- 1998-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The problem of improving services can be overcome by encouraging entrepreneurship in the public sector to develop innovative solutions to local problems.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 1997-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The report is based on case studies which exemplify the potential of social entrepreneurs to create forms of active welfare which are both cheaper and more effective than the traditional services offered by the welfare state.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Stephen Martin
- Publication Date
- 1998-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The authors propose a new labour market institution – the employee mutual – to help give people the ability to cope in today's volatile work environment.
- Authors
- Ben Jupp, Charles Leadbeater, George Lawson, Helen Hayes, Helen Wilkinson, Jamie Coulthard, Keith Collins, Mark Leonard, Richard Warner, Rowena Young, Sarah Gregory, Tom Bentley
- Publication Date
- 1997-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Demos’ manifesto argues that after a century of decline, Britain is ready for a new spring, and it offers a plethora of imaginative policy ideas.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 1997-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The author argues that mutuality could be the idea which shapes politics in the years ahead. Mutuality links rights with obligations and balances individualism with membership.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 1996-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Sets out a number of ways in which society could better deal with crime, including repopulating public spaces and bringing back the police box.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Martin Bartle, Liz Bailey, Joanna Wade, James Purnell
- Publication Date
- 1994-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
This issue sets out a radical set of solutions to unemployment, covering everything from ‘employability’ to the role of the informal economy.
- Authors
- Andrew Adonis, Charles Leadbeater, Joanna Wade, Liz Bailey, Lisa Barclay, Martin Bartle, Martin Summers
- Publication Date
- 1994-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The issue recommends a series of innovations in democracy, ranging from referendums and citizens’ juries to new uses of communications technology.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 2002-01-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
The Civil Service is caught between the need for incremental improvement of existing services and the creation of new services for a changing society. In order to succeed, this notoriously risk-averse institution must learn to embrace experimentation.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 2003-05-22
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
This report sets out a strategy for transforming public libraries and making them central to the life of our communities.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 2004-04-15
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Writer, consultant and government advisor Charles Leadbeater examines the possible impacts of 'personalisation' - a big idea with the potential to transform the public sector.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 2004-05-04
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Education has to put the learner at the centre, and personalisation is a powerful tool in making this possible.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater
- Publication Date
- 2004-11-01
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Britain is already recognised as having a long-hours work culture which affects people’s well-being. But this report exposes how a combination of long hours and high-pressure jobs is affecting people’s sleep, and creating a vicious circle of tiredness and stress.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Paul Miller
- Publication Date
- 2004-11-24
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
After the rise of the professional in the 20th century we are now seeing this historic shift reversing in the Pro-Am revolution. Enthusiastic amateurs, pursuing activities to professional standards will have an increasingly important role in our society and economy.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, James Wilsdon
- Publication Date
- 2007-01-17
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
We used to know where new ideas would come from: established universities and corporate research centres in highly developed countries. Think again.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, James Wilsdon, Molly Webb, Kirsten Bound, Simon O'Connor
- Publication Date
- 2007-05-10
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
We used to know where new ideas would come from: established universities and corporate research centres in highly developed countries. Think again.
- Authors
- Charles Leadbeater, Jamie Bartlett, Niamh Gallagher
- Publication Date
- 2008-01-18
- Publication Type
- Pamphlet
Participative Public Services
Charles Leadbeater, Niamh Gallagher, Jamie Bartlett, Jen LexmondThe Participative Public Services project will explore how to make participative, person-centred approaches to social care the norm over the next three to five years.
More
The Atlas of Ideas
Jack Stilgoe, James Wilsdon, Kirsten Bound, Natalie Day, Molly Webb, Charles LeadbeaterThe Atlas of Ideas was a three year programme at Demos, which explored changes in the global geography of science and innovation. Between 2005 and 2008, it published studies of China, India, South Korea and Brazil.
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Open Source Public Policy
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