Center for Ethics Timeline

The table below lists key events in the Center's history, organized by year.

Year	Event
1986	The Center was launched by President Derek Bok and Founding Director, Professor Dennis F. Thompson as the Program on Ethics in the Professions.
1990	Graduate Fellowship in Ethics was established to support outstanding Harvard graduate students who are writing dissertations on topics related to ethics.
2001	The Center received a bequest of $12 million from the estate of the late Lester Kissel, which established the Lester Kissel Presidential Fund for Ethics that supports core activities of the Center.
2004	A major gift from the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation supports the Center’s core activities. The Center was renamed the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics.
2009	Professor Lawrence Lessig assumed leadership of the Center and launched the Edmond J. Safra Research Lab, also known as the Institutional Corruption Lab, designed to address fundamental problems of ethics in government institutions and society more broadly.
2010	Once again, Mrs. Safra provided another extraordinary gift of $12.3 million to recognize the role that new research plays in the Center’s longevity.
2013	The Center launched the Undergraduate Fellowship program, selecting fellows from Harvard College who wish to add a formal ethics component into their senior theses.
2015	The Institutional Corruption Lab ended its five-year mandate, culminating in a two-day conference on “Ending Institutional Corruption,” and a two-day hackathon.
2015	Professor Danielle Allen assumed leadership of the Center with the mandate to integrate Professor Thompson’s focus on ethics in the professional schools and Professor Lessig’s focus on ethics in the wider world.
2017	The Center launched a Curriculum Development Initiative with a $375K grant from the Edmond J. Safra Foundation to create and redesign Gen Ed ethics courses in partnership with the Program in General Education and the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning.
2018	Democratic Knowledge Project (DKP), Professor Allen’s K-12 civic education initiative, gained momentum with the goal of adding a formal implementation arm to the Centers basic research practice.
2019	The Center acquired over $3M in grants from multiple sources for their portfolio of ethics and civics education work.
2020	Professor Allen created the COVID-19 Rapid Response Initiative that helped push testing, contact tracing, and isolation policies around the United States that informed the country’s complete COVID policy.
2021	The Center expands the Justice, Health & Democracy (JHD) Impact Initiative, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to address ethical challenges at the intersection of public health, governance, and justice.
2023	Professor Eric Beerbohm was appointed Faculty Director, continuing the Center’s tradition of applying rigorous ethical reasoning to pressing societal issues.
PRESENT DAY	The Center is at the forefront of civil discourse and ethics pedagogy, working to strengthen democratic engagement, bridge ideological divides, and cultivate ethical reasoning across communities. Key programs include the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership (ICDP) and the Fellows in Values Engagement (FiVE).