When a System Learns to be Compassionate - Professor Liz Grant

What does it look like when a system learns to be compassionate? In this thoughtful and timely conversation, we explore that question with Professor Liz Grant from the University of Edinburgh.

Liz is Professor of Global Health and Development at the University of Edinburgh, where her work brings together global health, compassion, planetary wellbeing, and systems change. Across research, policy, education, and advocacy, she has focused on turning global health knowledge into action, especially in communities facing poverty, conflict, and resource constraints.

Together, we move beyond the idea of mindfulness as simply an individual practice and explore what it can make possible at a systemic level. Liz reflects on how compassion helps us hold complexity, bridge division, and remain deeply human in the face of suffering, while also sharing a practical four-part framework for compassion: noticing suffering, understanding its causes, feeling with others, and taking meaningful action to reduce distress.

This episode asks how we can build cultures that prioritise psychological safety, structural compassion, and collective awareness. It also challenges the misconception that compassion is simply about being nice, instead revealing its connection to accountability, justice, truth, equity, and wise leadership. From healthcare and workplaces to financial institutions and everyday life, this conversation is rooted in strength, kindness, and structural change, inviting us to consider how self-compassion and awareness can transform systems from the inside out.