Ethics Initiative
We are living through a century of unprecedented technological, economic, and social change. And each new development poses significant ethical questions that we must study and decisively respond to. The Notre Dame Ethics Initiative is establishing Notre Dame as a premier global destination for the study of ethics, offering superb training for future ethicists and moral leaders, a platform for engagement of the Catholic moral tradition with other modes of inquiry, and an opportunity to forge insights into some of the most significant ethical issues of our time.
Status Update
The Ethics Initiative supports departments and colleges in faculty hiring and academic programming, and operates the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG), launched in July 2024. Recently, ECG secured two major grants to support its work: A $50.8 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support The DELTA Network: Faith-Based Ethical Formation for a World of Powerful AI, and a $10 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to ECG’s Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Center for Virtue Ethics to advance the love ethic, an approach that centers interpersonal love in moral reasoning.
In the first half of 2026, the Ethics Initiative hosted DELTA Encounter events in South Bend, Washington D.C., and the Bay Area, engaging pastoral ministers, educators, and technologists across the country in conversation on the role of technology in our shared communities and the dignity of learning. The Institute for Ethics and the Common Good also conducted scenario planning workshops in partnership with the Brookings Institute and the Windfall Trust, exploring emerging opportunities and challenges posed to the workforce in an age of powerful AI. DELTA Faith and AI Rapid Response grants will be awarded to support curriculum development, pastoral training programs, and major public-facing creative projects that help shape the ethical use of AI grounded in the DELTA framework.
In February 2026, the Ethics Initiative welcomed its first Social Innovator Fellows to campus. This new program engages accomplished non-profit leaders, affording the fellows an on-campus residency and the resources to advance a critical project related to applied ethics in their specific field of work.
In 2025, the Ethics Initiative hosted two major conferences. In September, over 200 attendees gathered for the Notre Dame Summit on AI, Faith, and Human Flourishing, and in October, the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab hosted Raise the Bar: The Responsible Deployment of AI for Large Enterprises, a convening of 175 leaders in academia, technology, and business, at IBM’s flagship office in Manhattan.
Ethics Initiative: 2025 year-end update
Transformed Institute for Ethics and the Common Good advances Notre Dame’s commitment to excellence in the study of ethics
The University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Advanced Study is now the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. The transformed, expanded Institute will play an essential role in advancing the University-wide Ethics Initiative.
Learn more about the Ethics Initiative
Executive Committee
View Executive Committee MembersPartners
The Ethics Initiative is anchored in the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good, and works in collaboration with many units across Notre Dame's campus, including:
- Department of Philosophy
- Department of Theology
- Department of Sociology
- John J. Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values
- Keough School of Global Affairs
- Mendoza College of Business
- Nanovic Institute for European Studies
- The Graduate School
- The Lucy Institute for Data & Society
- Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab
Additional partners will be added as work on the initiative continues in the coming months and years.
