Hasan Bakhshi
www.nesta.org.uk/team/hasan-bakhshi/
www.nesta.org.uk/team/hasan-bakhshi/
Director, Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre
Hasan oversaw Nesta's creative economy policy, research and practical work.
Hasan led the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), a Nesta-led, AHRC-funded research consortium of ten universities, charged with improving the evidence base for policies to support the UK’s creative industries.
His 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 2015, he co-authored Creativity vs Robots, which explores how resistant are different creative occupations to future automation. 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.
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. He is also Adjunct Professor of Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology, and in 2013 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, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport's Science Advisory Council and the Office for Students’ Horizon Scanning Board. In 2017, he was elected to sit on the Royal Economic Society Council. Hasan currently serves on the board of two arts organisations: Art UK and Darbar Arts.
