Universities ‘should create spaces for serendipity’

‘Mother of missions’ Mariana Mazzucato wants conversations between disciplines to tackle global challenges

University should be bringing together everyone from physicists to poets and creating cross-disciplinary spaces “where serendipity should happen” to tackle the world’s biggest challenges, according to the influential economist Mariana Mazzucato.

Mazzucato has been instrumental in the rise of ‘mission-driven’ thinking in research funding—where money is focused on solving specific, defined and high-level problems.