Professor of Culture, Media and Economy at King’s College London, where he is director of the Centre for Culture, Media and Creative Industries, he formerly taught Urban Cultural Economy at the London School of Economics and was director of the Urban Research Centre. His field of study is cultural economics in the international and urban contexts, in particular with regard to the organisation and location of cultural industries and their impact on economy and society. He has worked as an adviser on these matters for UNESCO and UNCTAD and several governments and has written a great number of articles and books, among them The Creative and Cultural Economy and the Recession (Geoforum, 2009).