Chris Michaels

I advise clients in the Creative and Cultural industries on R&D & Innovation.

I'm the author of Creative R&D: Art | Ideas | Technology, a weekly newsletter on emerging creativity, new thinking and emerging technology.

I'm a specialist advisor in five areas:

• Working independently and as an Associate with Human Economics, I develop propositions, strategic plans and business cases for major investments in R&D and Innovation, with over £1bn of proposed investments in current development
• Working with communications agency Bolton & Quinn, I develop strategic narratives for major museums and arts and culture projects across the world
• I help grow companies in the creative technology sector, with a current portfolio including US digital IP start-up Tesseract Icons and web 3 technology company NIMI
• I research and write on art and technology and Executive Produce Creative R&D projects. I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts
• I sit on boards and advisory panels to help institutions digital transformation strategies, including as Deputy Chair of English Heritage and on the Digital Advisory Board of the National Gallery

From 2017-22 I was Director of Digital, Communications and Technology at the National Gallery, London. I was a Sr. Visiting Research Fellow at King’s College London, with whom I ran National Gallery X, an innovation lab for the future of art and technology. I was an AHRC Creative Industries Fellow in 2021-22. I was named one of the top 10 museum influencers by Blooloop in 2022 and an Ericsson 5G Trailblazer in 2021. I have a PHD from the University of Bristol and a Masters in Innovation Economics from UCL.