Given the complex and multifaceted nature of today’s challenges, the ability to work across disciplinary and institutional boundaries is critically important. The Office of the Provost works to facilitate this collaboration across Schools, faculties, and departments in a variety of ways—most notably in the form of seed funding and oversight for certain large-scale, cross-School, faculty-led initiatives.
The first of these “Interfaculty Initiatives” were created in the 1990s. Since that time, Harvard’s leadership and faculty have worked to create a wide range of Interfaculty Initiatives that address pressing social and intellectual needs. Of course, much of the University’s work is inherently interdisciplinary, and there are many School-based programs and centers that work collaboratively beyond their home Schools and departments. Formal Interfaculty Initiatives, listed below, have substantial faculty involvement from multiple Schools and report directly to the provost or jointly to the provost and a dean.
Harvard’s Interfaculty Initiatives reflect the collaborative effort that promises to advance research on some of the most important issues of our time.
Arts and Culture
International
- Center for International Development at Harvard University
- David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies
- Harvard China Fund
- Harvard University Asia Center
- Harvard University Center for African Studies
- The Lakshmi Mittal South Asia Institute at Harvard University
- Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University
Science
- Harvard Brain Science Initiative
- Harvard Data Science Initiative
- Harvard Origins of Life Initiative
- Harvard Stem Cell Institute
- Harvard University Center for the Environment
- Kempner Institute for the Study of Natural & Artificial Intelligence
- Microbial Sciences Initiative at Harvard
- Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative
- Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University
- Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University
Social Sciences
- Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University
- Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University
- Center for Geographic Analysis
- Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
- Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
- Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies
- Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Health
- Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights
- Harvard Global Health Institute
- Harvard Humanitarian Initiative
- Harvard University Center for AIDS Research
- Program in Health Policy