Biography — Roberto Stefan Foa

1998 — 2000

Schooling

Esher College · Surrey, United Kingdom

I completed my schooling at a state-funded sixth-form college, sitting A-Levels in the summer of 2000. I was awarded A grades in five subjects including Philosophy, Economics, English Literature and History.

In Philosophy I was informed by the examination board (AQA) that I had achieved one of the top five marks in the country. In Economics I was placed within the "top twenty" of some 7,000 candidates nationally, receiving a letter of commendation from the Chief Examiner and Assessment Leader of Edexcel. Coverage of these results appeared in local newspapers.

Documents

2000 — 2003

Undergraduate study — Philosophy, Politics and Economics

Mansfield College, University of Oxford

I matriculated at Mansfield College, Oxford in October 2000 to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), graduating in June 2003 with a first-class BA (Hons.). I obtained a Distinction in the First Public Examination (Prelims) in 2001, and in Finals in 2003 the second-highest First in PPE across the University, ranked by Trinity Term marks.

For my Politics dissertation and Politics written paper I was awarded proxime accessit for the University's Gibbs Prize in Politics, and Mansfield College awarded me a book prize in recognition of my Finals result. Individual paper marks are recorded on the official transcript issued by the College, and the University examination result was subsequently confirmed in a letter from the Chair of the PPE Examiners.

Documents

2003 — 2008

Early career — Financial Times, Cafébabel, World Bank

London · Paris · Washington, D.C.

From 2003 to 2004 I served as English-language editor of Cafébabel, the pan-European magazine, based in Paris, and held the Financial Times' Peter Martin Fellowship.

Between 2006 and 2008 I worked as an Extended Term Consultant at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., where I designed the Indices of Social Development — a global dataset combining more than 25 sources to measure institutional characteristics such as trust, tolerance and social inclusion. The ISD project subsequently migrated to the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. From 2007 I also served as founding president of the Washington European Society.

Documents & profiles

2008 — 2016

Doctoral studies — Department of Government

Harvard University · Cambridge, Massachusetts

I obtained an M.A. (2010, distinction) and Ph.D. (2016) in Government at Harvard University. My doctoral dissertation, Ancient Polities, Modern States, was supervised by a committee chaired by James A. Robinson and including Steven Wilkinson, Daniel Ziblatt and Ronald Inglehart. I chaired the Harvard graduate European society, was awarded a Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching for top scores in teaching the Politics of South Asia and taught the Sophomore sequence on Democracy.

During this period I served as principal investigator of the World Values Survey in Rwanda (2007) and, subsequently, Uzbekistan (2012), Indonesia (2017) and Bangladesh (2019). My first widely-cited journal publication — "Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness: A Global Perspective (1981–2007)", co-authored with Ronald Inglehart, Christopher Peterson and Christian Welzel — appeared in Perspectives on Psychological Science in 2008.

Documents

2016 — 2019

Lecturer in Political Science

University of Melbourne · Melbourne, Australia

My first academic appointment was as Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne (2016–2019). During this time I was principal investigator of the World Values Survey in Indonesia and Bangladesh (Wave 7), supported by a University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor's Grant and an Early Career Research Grant, and I was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant of AUD $352,514 in November 2017. In 2018 I was also a fellow of the Electoral Integrity Project at the University of Sydney.

In 2016, with Yascha Mounk, I published "The Danger of Deconsolidation: The Democratic Disconnect" in the Journal of Democracy, followed in 2017 by "The Signs of Deconsolidation". The two articles introduced the concept of democratic deconsolidation, prompted a symposium of replies, and were covered in the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Financial Times and elsewhere.

Documents

2019 — present

University of Cambridge — POLIS & Bennett Institute

Cambridge, United Kingdom

In 2019 I joined the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at the University of Cambridge as a University Lecturer. In 2020 my title changed to University Assistant Professor in Politics and Public Policy at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and then to Associate Professor in 2024.

In January 2020 I co-founded, with David Runciman, the Centre for the Future of Democracy. The Centre's reports — including the Global Satisfaction with Democracy series, work on youth and democracy, and studies of shifting alignments during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine — have been covered extensively by the Financial Times, The Economist, the New York Times, the BBC and Reuters. From January 2020 to December 2022 I also directed the YouGov–Cambridge Centre for Public Opinion Research. In November 2023 I delivered the opening presentation of the Council of Europe's World Forum for Democracy, held in the hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In 2026 I was appointed Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Policy Institute, King's College London, and — separately — co-founded the Sephira Institute, an independent research organisation combining harmonised global surveys with high-frequency web data.

Documents & profiles

2010 — present

Advisory work, awards & honours

United Kingdom · OECD · United Nations · Independent bodies

Alongside my academic role I have advised a number of governmental and international bodies. In the United Kingdom I have provided policy input to the Cabinet Office on public opinion and democratic resilience, and undertaken work for the British Council on global attitudes toward the United Kingdom. Internationally I have served as a consultant to the United Nations, the Africa Progress Panel and the European Council on Tolerance and Reconciliation.

Awards include a paper honoured in the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) Magna Carta Prize competition; the Patrick J. Welch Award from the Association for Social Economics; the Harvard Bok Center Teaching Distinction Award; and the Financial Times' Peter Martin Fellowship. Three of my articles have been rated by Web of Science among the top 1% most-cited in their fields, and I have been described by Cambridge's student newspaper Varsity as "Cambridge's most cited politics scholar". My Cambridge course on States and State Formation was awarded the highest rating (5 out of 5) by all students. I serve as an elected member of the Executive Committee of the World Values Survey (Wave 8, 2023–2027), and hold ongoing memberships including the Oxford Altius Society.

Documents & profiles