About us

About

Communicating Economics is a free resource for anyone who wants to, ahem, communicate economics! Whether you are a seasoned academic economist or a professional just starting your career, or a student, on this site you’ll find tools, tips and training to help you, ahem, communicate economics. 

Economics is too important a topic to be misunderstood or miscommunicated. As John Maynard Keynes wrote: “The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.” 

Communicating Economics was originally founded as a blog by economics communicators Bob Denham and Romesh Vaitilingam in 2017 and ran until 2019. 

From 2019, several academics introduced courses in communicating economics. These included, Rachel Griffith at the University of Manchester, who ran a policy-focused course for second-year students, Chris Colvin at Queens University Belfast, who taught a first year course introducing students to different communication styles in within the discipline (including an interesting take on economics as science fiction) and Sarah Smith and Christian Spielman at the University of Bristol whose third-year course developed students’ skills in communicating technical economics research to wider audiences through policy reports, data charts and videos. Their course won the European Economic Association’s 2025 Innovation in Teaching award. 

This website builds on the cumulative experience of these courses and includes a lot of the material that has now been tried and tested. 

Sarah, Romesh and Bob have now relaunched the site in 2026, with support from the European Economic Association. 

If you’re looking to teach a course on Communicating Economics, you’ll find available slides and teaching notes. We also provide bespoke training courses. If you’d like to contribute an article or your own insights and experience, please do get in touch, below.

Warmly, 

Sarah, Romesh and Bob

The Team

Sarah Smith is a Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol, where she teaches a Communicating Economics course. Sarah holds numerous academic and professional positions including at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Financial Services Authority, CEPR and Econometrics Society. Sarah is founder and co-chair of Discover Economics, a campaign to increase diversity among economics students. In 2022, she was awarded an OBE for services to economics and education and in 2025 the Professional Services medal by the Royal Economic Society.

Romesh Vaitilingam is an economics writer, communications consultant and editor-in-chief of the Economics Observatory. He is the author of several books and reports on economics, finance, business and public policy, including ‘The Financial Times Guide to Using the Financial Pages’, which has sold over a quarter of a million copies since 1993. Romesh also works with the economic research and policy-making community, including the Centre for Economic Policy Research and VoxEU, the European Economic Association, the IGM Forum’s Economic Experts Panels and the Royal Economic Society. In 2003, he was awarded an MBE for services to economic and social science. 

Bob Denham is a filmmaker with a first-class degree in economics and econometrics and a background in journalism, banking and education. He founded Econ Films in 2012 to provide a way for researchers to communicate their work more effectively in the growing area of online video. Bob has produced hundreds of films and videos around the world with institutions across global policy, education and academia, including the UN, the World Bank, Yale University, MIT, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, McGraw Hill and the BBC.

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