Mulgan worked for a spell in the 1980s as a van driver for the "
Labour-supporting collective of musicians and comedians known as
Red Wedge", opting ultimately for a career in local government and academia in the UK as well as writing on social and political issues in various newspapers and magazines in the 1990s, including
The Independent, the
Financial Times,
The Guardian, and the
New Statesman. He also worked as a reporter for BBC television and radio. In January 2020, he was appointed as Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation at
University College London, to lead research into
collective intelligence. Also in 2020, he joined the Nordic
think tank Demos Helsinki as a fellow. Earlier roles include: • Chief executive of
Nesta, an innovation foundation (2011 to 2019). He led the organisation's transition from the public sector to an independent charitable foundation. • Co-founder and director of the London-based
think tank Demos (from 1993 to 1998) • Chief adviser to
Gordon Brown MP in the early 1990s He has founded or co-founded many organisations, including: Demos, the Young Foundation, the Social Innovation Exchange (SIX), Uprising, Studio Schools Trust,
Action for Happiness, the Alliance for Useful Evidence, States of Change, The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, Maslaha and Nesta Italia. He is a founding editor-in-chief of the journal
Collective Intelligence, published by Sage and ACM. He has been chair of various organisations including the Social Innovation Exchange; Involve; Nesta Italia; and the
Studio Schools Trust. He was co-chair of the London
LEP Digital, Science, Technology and Arts group under then London Mayor Boris Johnson. He has been a board member of
Big Society Capital and a trustee of charities including
Action for Happiness; the
Photographers' Gallery; Reimagine Europa; Luton Culture Trust; the
Design Council,
the Work Foundation, Crime Concern, and
Political Quarterly, and a member of various committees for bodies including the
European Commission,
World Economic Forum,
OECD,
SITRA and the
Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2007–2008 Mulgan was an Adelaide Thinker in Residence, advising South Australian Premier
Mike Rann on social innovation and social inclusion policies. As a result of Mulgan's recommendations, the Rann Government established The Australian Centre for Social Innovation. From 2016 to 2019, Mulgan was a senior visiting scholar at the Ash Center in the
Kennedy School at Harvard University. From 2019 to 2022 he was a World Economic Forum Schwab Fellow. Mulgan is profiled in two books:
The New Alchemists (1999, by
Charles Handy), and
Visionaries (2001, by
Jay Walljasper). He was profiled by the
Daily Telegraph in January 2024, prompted by evidence that when in government he had tried to cancel the Horizon Post Office software which later caused a series of
miscarriages of justice and a major scandal. == Works ==