Leandro Valiati is Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries at the University of Manchester, and one of the few researchers in the field working inside British, Brazilian and European research and policy systems at once. He was previously at Queen Mary University of London and UFRGS in Brazil, and has long-running collaborations with the University of Valencia and Labex ICCA at Université Sorbonne Paris Nord.

His research sits where cultural economics, institutional economics and creative industries policy meet, and it runs along three lines: comparative work on the UK and Brazil, European consortium projects, and policy engagement across Latin America.

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That reach extends to the bodies where creative economy policy is actually set. His current roles include UNESCO's Expert Facility for Reshaping Cultural Policies, UNCTAD's creative economy programme, the British Council's Global Council for Creative Economy, the DCMS College of Experts and the British Academy.

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He is the author of two books with Routledge. The Political Economy of the Creative and Cultural Industries (2025) argues that cultural production should be judged as a driver of multidimensional development, not as a sector forced to justify itself in GVA terms. Creative Industries Development Policy (2026) examines the record of the first generation of creative industries policy, including what it achieved and where it failed. It then sets out what policy design and policy transfer must do differently if the next generation is to deliver.