As part of the Notre Dame 2033 strategic framework, the University of Notre Dame launched an ambitious new Ethics Initiative to establish Notre Dame as a premier global destination for the study of ethics, offering superb training for future generations of 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..
In its first year, the Ethics Initiative launched the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG), a transformation and expansion of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. In November, the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab—a key component of ECG—hosted a conference on the importance of responsible AI in finance, convening senior-level executives in the finance industry, tech experts, and cutting-edge researchers. The institute also won a $539,000 planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support Faith-Based Frameworks for AI Ethics.
“The Ethics Initiative has had a phenomenal launch year,” said Meghan Sullivan, Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of the Ethics Initiative and the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. “Buoyed by the generous benefaction that established the new Jenkins Center for Virtue Ethics, the continued support of IBM's investment in the ND–IBM Technology Ethics Lab, and an infusion of grant funding from the John Templeton Foundation, the Lilly Endowment Inc., and the National Science Foundation, we've got tremendous momentum as we pursue our goal of making Notre Dame the premier global destination for the study of ethics.”
Read more highlights from the Ethics Initiative's first year