Photograph: Institute for Manufacturing
Agent
Assistant
Biography
He is an award-winning lecturer, runs outreach programmes to raise awareness of manufacturing among primary and secondary schoolchildren and their teachers, researches and writes about manufacturing, innovation and skills, and regularly delivers talks on these topics nationally and internationally. He contributes to a wide range of national manufacturing policy initiatives in the UK and overseas.
He has worked in Japan and Australia as a teacher, consultant and engineer before moving to Cambridge to help support tech entrepreneurs develop their ideas into products. Then, to the surprise of many (not least himself) he became the first-ever Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge, a position created by a donation from one of the UK’s most prolific innovators and successful manufacturers, Dr John C Taylor OBE (the inventor of, amongst many other things, the electric kettle switch used by billions around the world every day).
In 2025 his book YOUR LIFE IS MANUFACTURED was published by Faber in the UK and by HarperCollins in the US, as HOW THINGS ARE MADE.
Publications
From mega-factory floors, engineering laboratories and seaports to distribution hubs, supermarkets and our own homes, embark on an eye-opening guided tour through the world of manufacturing and its transformational influence on our lives – and the planet.
Unless you are floating naked through space, you are right now in direct contact with multiple manufactured products, be it furniture, technology, clothing, and or even food. The processes by which these things appear in our lives are virtually invisible. How often do we stop to think: Where do the things we buy actually come from?
Charting the byzantine journeys taken by everyday items to reach us, Your Life is Manufactured reveals the seismic impact manufacturing has had on our lives and the natural world – and explores how it could offer us a path to a truly sustainable, more equitable future. In doing so, Minshall grants us the ability to make better choices for ourselves, our communities and the planet.
