Professor Nancy Cartwright [Photo: BBVA Foundation]

Professor Nancy Cartwright, Centenary Visiting Professor in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the University of Oxford, has been awarded the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Humanities.

The prestigious international award recognises Professor Cartwright’s use of philosophy to strengthen scientific rationality and ground the adoption of effective, evidence-based public policies. The BBVA Foundation committee noted Professor Cartwright’s decisive contributions to the philosophy of science during an academic career that has spanned over five decades.

Professor Cartwright’s work has used a philosophical perspective to create a bridge between philosophy and the real-world practice of science. By questioning the nature of science and its application, Professor Cartwright has gone beyond influential notions such as science as a combination of theory and experiment, and deterministic patterns such as the laws of nature – leading to the analysis of theories and methods spanning both natural and social sciences, as well as their findings. In her work, she argues that the use of diverse methodological tools and scientific constructs has the potential to facilitate a gradual but increased understanding of the world’s complexity.

Atocha Aliseda, Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Institute for Philosophical Research of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and chair of the selection committee, said: “This award distinguishes a leading intellectual who has made a signal contribution from the realm of philosophy to an improved understanding of science methodology, with regard to both basic and social sciences,” and “Her body of work has provided many key insights into how we can ascertain whether an experimental finding is reliable, whether a methodological approach is right for the specific research objective sought, and, consequently, how we can make the best evidence-based decisions.”

Genoveva Martí, BBVA Foundation committee member and ICREA Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, said: “Nancy Cartwright has pioneered a practical analysis of how we come to understanding something scientifically, demonstrating with precision how science advances knowledge.”

Professor Cartwright said: “I am naturally extremely thrilled to receive this award. I want to underline though that the bulk of my work has been carried out with different wonderful teams of collaborators, often inter disciplinary, which is unusual in philosophy. But I think it really matters: for the kind of work I do, it takes a village to come up with something worthwhile.”

Published: 5 May 2026

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