Advisory Board

Toby Bennett’s research interests concern matters of work, organisation, knowledge and policy in relation to cultural and media production. He has a particular interest in music industries, stemming from a previous career in music rights management, and has a book exploring experiences of digital disruption on employment within UK major record companies, titled Corporate Life in the Digital Music Industry (forthcoming with Bloomsbury). He is Lecturer in Media, Culture and Management at University of Westminster and a Research Fellow at City, University of London where, most recently, he has been involved with the CICERONE (Horizon 2020) project, mapping global production networks in the creative economy. He is an Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Cultural Economy.

Simon Grand is an associate professor of Strategic Management and Management Innovation at the Swiss Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, University of St. Gallen (HSG), leading a research program on “Entrepreneuring, strategizing and aesthetic practice”. At the same time, he is a permanent research fellow at the Zurich Center for Creative Economies (ZCCE), where he studies entrepreneurial strategies in creative ecologies. He is the founder and managing director of Grand Strategy Innovation GmbH and member of the supervisory board of several entrepreneurial companies. Simon Grand has published numerous books on strategic management, entrepreneurship and innovation, and has repeatedly taken part in the international conference on Creative Economy organised by the German Federal Government’s Centre of Excellence for the Cultural and Creative Industries. He brings his great expertise on the dynamic and impact of the Creative Economies to the Advisory Board of CIRCE.

Mari Hanikat is the CEO of Garage48 – an organization dedicated to organizing hackathons,
acceleration programs and other open-innovation events. She has led the project
management of more than 55 hackathons on various topics all over the world. Mari Hanikat is one of the founders of the gender-inclusive hackathon series Empowering Women (Ukraine, Estonia, Afghanistan, Uganda, Kenya). She has extensive experience in developing, managing, implementing, and evaluating hackathons and acceleration programs worldwide. Some of the signature traits of her events involve potential mapping stakeholders from the public and private sectors and boosting collaboration between them. Many of the projects she has initiated tackle socioeconomic issues from a technological point of view. Her experience in the conception of open-innovation events and the conditions of creative processes in early-stage hold great potential for CIRCE.

Natasha A. Kelly was described by Vogue Germany as a “polymath”, a person who successfully pursues many different activities. Her fields of activity range from academia and research, to art and culture, politics and activism, always with a keen eye on the past, present and future of Black people in Germany and Europe. Her transdisciplinary, transmedial and transnational expertise benefit the first Institute for Black German Arts and Culture, of which she is the founding director. The institute operates as a think tank and cultural laboratory that contributes to the reappraisal of the colonial legacy and the perpetuation of a positive self-image of Black people in Germany. Natasha A. Kelly’s research as well as her engagement in this field will form an important input for CIRCE.

Anna Luise Kiss is a media scientist and has been director of Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch Berlin since 2021. Previously, she headed the BMBF-funded research project “The Cinematic Face of Cities” at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf and was vice president for Research and Transfer at the Film University. Prior to her academic career, she worked as an actress for several years. Her research focuses on theories of acting, artists‘ biographies, film history and cultural artifact structures in urban space. She is particularly interested in the design of heterogeneity-oriented academic structures, the dismantling of classism in artistic training contexts, and new forms of management of art colleges. She will now also bring her great expertise in the area of future skills of professionals to CIRCE.

Teresa Koloma Beck is a sociologist and researches everyday life and globalisation in crisis contexts. She is particularly interested in the presence of colonial and imperial pasts in contemporary conflicts. She is a professor of sociology at Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg. Previously, she worked in various international and interdisciplinary research and teaching contexts, including the Humboldt University of Berlin, the University of Erfurt and the French-German research institute Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin. Ethnographic research on the everyday life of (post-)war and globalisation led her to Angola (2005/06), Mozambique (2010) and Afghanistan (2015). She is currently researching, among other things, the transformation of ideas of Europe in the face of multiple crises. In addition to her membership of the Advisory Board, she will make a valuable contribution as Head of Research and Academic Community within the CIRCE project team with her expertise as a sociologist looking at social conflicts and crises.

Clara Montero is an art historian and cultural manager. She studied art history, psychology and pedagogy at the University of Frankfurt. She then worked in various art galleries in Zurich, and returned to San Sebastian in 2008 to join the Tabakalera project. After that she supported various cultural institutions in their programming as a freelancer. In 2012, she was appointed Director for the Promotion of Culture in the Basque Government. She has subsequently been involved in the development of public policies in the field of cultural industries and has been member of the boards of trustees and boards of directors of some of the most important Basque cultural institutions, such as the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the festival Quincena Musical, Filmoteca Vasca and Tabakalera. Her extensive activities in the arts and culture sector bring an important perspective to CIRCE.

After 25 years at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Andy C. Pratt has established the world’s first Department of Culture and the Creative Industries at King’s College London. At City, University of London he specializes in the analysis of cultural industries globally. His current research concerns trans-local cultural production chains and is funded by EU Horizon 2020. He has previously explored projects on knowledge transfer, innovation, and creativity in the creative economy, and has worked with UNESCO, UNCTAD and WIPO, among others. He is also editor-in-chief of the international interdisciplinary journal City, Culture and Society. Andy C. Pratt’s foundational research in Creative Economy is a key to the development of timely and relevant support for creative influence and innovation.

Christoph Weckerle is Director of the Zurich Centre for Creative Economies (ZCCE) at  Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). His cultural policy research focuses on the intersection of art, design and economy, policy, and society. He is a member of the Representative Board of ELIA (European League of Institutes of the Arts) and furthermore member of the Advisory Board “Education and Discourses” at Goethe Institut. 

He was awarded the Swiss Design Prize for his research on the creative economies.

He will bring his many years of experience in the field of the creative economies to CIRCE as a member of the Advisory Board and as director of Zurich‘s Research Lab.