Hasan Bakhshi MBE

Director

Hasan is Professor of Economics of the Creative Industries and Director of the the Creative PEC, which is led by Newcastle University with the RSA, and funded by the AHRC. The Creative PEC is charged with improving the evidence base for policies to support the UK’s creative industries.

Hasan’s work includes co-authoring the landmark Next Gen skills review of the video games and visual effects industries, which led to wholesale reforms of the school ICT curriculum in England, and the Manifesto for the Creative Economy, which sets out ten recommendations by which governments can help the creative economy grow. Hasan has a particular interest in data and experimental research methods. In 2017, he co-authored The Future of Skills: Employment in 2030 which combines foresight methods and machine learning to predict the likely workforce skills mix in the future. In 2020, he designed and led a cohort study of cultural consumption in the UK’s first national lockdown.

Prior to Nesta, Hasan worked as Executive Director at Lehman Brothers, as Deputy Chief Economist at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as an economist at the Bank of England. He has published widely in academic journals and policy publications on topics ranging from technological progress and economic growth to the economics of the creative and cultural sector.

Hasan has a BA in Economics from Cambridge and an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford. In 2013 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate from the University of Brighton for his work on economic policy for the creative industries. In the 2015 New Year’s Honours he was awarded an MBE for services to the creative industries.

Hasan is a member of the government’s Creative Industries Council and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Advisory Board for its Culture and Heritage Capital Framework. He was elected as member of the Royal Economic Society Council from 2017-2022. Hasan currently serves on the board of two arts organisations: Art UK and Darbar Arts.