Nesta is an innovation foundation. For us, innovation means turning bold ideas into reality and changing lives for the better. We use our expertise, skills and funding in areas where there are big challenges facing society.
Principal Data Scientist, Data Analytics Practice
John was a data scientist focusing on the digital and creative economy. He was interested in the interface of economics, digital technology and data.
Particularly in the domains of creative activity and places, and in the use of social media and web scraped data.
Past projects have included mapping the geography of employment in the UK's creative and high-tech economies, using Twitter data and social network analysis to assess the impact of networking events, analysing Meetup data to identify activities in the UK at the intersection of technology and art, using geo-tagged Flickr photographic data to understand people's engagement with historic buildings in London, reconstructing the social networks of an online art gallery, and building an interactive map of museum access.
He has also written on topics in the data economy such as open data, markets for personal data, the value of personal data and consumer choice, and on the effects of digital technology in higher education, manufacturing, democracy, art and fashion.
John is on the Intellectual Property Office's research advisory committee and served on the steering group of the British Academy's Where we live now project into place based policymaking.
Prior to Nesta, he worked as English Heritage's economist and led its Social and Economic research team. He has also worked for a leading economic consultancy and as a civil servant in a number of Government departments.
In a career that has taken him from from carbon markets to cartels and from Stonehenge to social media, John has worked on competition issues in a range of industries, been directly involved in the implementation of the European Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), and analysed private pensions, the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and investments in castles. He has also done some work on data visualisation.
John has undergraduate and master's degrees in economics from the LSE.
email: [email protected]
twitter: @johnardavies
Join our mailing list to receive the Nesta edit: your first look at the latest insights, opportunities and analysis from Nesta and the innovation sector.
* denotes a required field
You can unsubscribe by clicking the link in our emails where indicated, or emailing [email protected]. Or you can update your contact preferences. We promise to keep your details safe and secure. We won’t share your details outside of Nesta without your permission. Find out more about how we use personal information in our Privacy Policy.