Justin OConnor is Professor of Cultural Economy at the University of South Australia and visiting Chair in the School of Cultural Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University. He has held professorships at Monash University, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Leeds, and is a former Director of the Manchester Institute for Popular Culture at Manchester Metropolitan University. He also helped establish and was first chair of Manchesters Creative Industries Development Service (CIDS), the UKs first dedicated local economic development agency for the creative industries. Justin led the team which established Manchesters first Creative Quarter - the Northern Quarter. Between 2012 and 2018 he was a member of the UNESCO 2005 Convention’s Expert Facility, supporting cultural policy development in Mauritius and Samoa.