Civic Science Funders Collaborative Advisory Series | Embedding Ethics to Accelerate Discovery: A Civic Science Conversation with Dame Carol Robinson 

In the November 2025 Civic Science Funders Collaborative Advisory Series, Rita Allen Foundation President & CEO Elizabeth Christopherson joined Kavli Foundation President & CEO Cynthia Friend in conversation with Dame Carol Robinson, founding director of the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at the University of Oxford and a pioneering biochemist.

Dame Carol’s unconventional path to science—from leaving school at 16 to work as a lab technician to leading one of Oxford’s most innovative research institutes—has given her a distinctive perspective on how to make science stronger for everyone. At the heart of her approach: embedding ethics directly into the research process, not as a compliance exercise, but as a genuine driver of better science.

“I think that’s for me the excitement about basic research. You don’t actually know quite what you’re going to find, but you will find something, and it will be important.” – Dame Carol Robinson

Read the full conversation.