Kate Oakley is a writer and policy analyst, specialising in the knowledge economy, the creative industries and regional development.

She is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Creative Industries, Queensland University of Technology, where she recently spent a semester teaching on the Master of Creative Industries course. While in Australia, she completed a national series of policy Masterclasses on ‘Building Creative Regions’. The workshops explored the issues of creative industry development in the context of place, linking policy on the knowledge economy and innovation with spatial developments both in the urban and rural context

In 2000, was the author, together with Charles Leadbeater of The Independents, a groundbreaking study of Britain’s ‘cultural entrepreneurs’ and Surfing the Long Wave, a look at networks in the UK’s knowledge economy. More recently, she was the prime author of the "Creative London" Report, and has worked with a number of cities and regions on public policy in the creative industries.

Kate is an Associate of the independent think-tank, Demos and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is a member of the Advisory Group for IPPR’s Intellectual Property and the Public Sphere Project and an Advisor to the North West Development Agency on Creative Industries.

She previously held research and consulting posts with the Policy Studies Institute and Manchester Business School, where she had a Fellowship in the Knowledge Industries.