I’m Matthew Quinn, and I’ve spent over 30 years as a senior public servant based in the United Kingdom. I’ve worked in different levels of administration and countries in the UK as well as in the European Union and the United Nations. I’ve also researched internationally. I’m currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Cardiff University and am living in Colorado, USA.
Most of my career has wrestled with the question of how we should govern if we are to achieve sustainable development – the idea of living in ways which allow future generations to live well with the planet and meet their needs.
I was fortunate to work in new institutions where we were able to innovate and to develop action collaboratively with civil society. It is this practical learning about innovation and barriers to change, informed by understanding of human history and of the natural world, which brought me to the idea of the need for a new civic bureaucracy.