With the help of our members, INS maintains this list of organizations and programs focused on teaching neuroethics. Links to external parties are provided as a courtesy and are not an endorsement of products or services. Contact INS staff <staff@neuroethicssociety.org> to recommend resources for this page.
Webinars
Ethics & Society Training Resources
Human Brain Project
The Capacity Development Committee of the Human Brain Project (HBP) has developed Ethics & Society Training Resources, a series of recurring webinars designed to educate EBRAIN and HBP researchers on how to identify and address ethical issues within their neuroscientific inquiry. These talks extend beyond issues of compliance, and cover topics from equity, diversity, and inclusion to questions of emerging consciousness in brain models, dual use in neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and public engagement. Select webinars include work in small groups. See the website for further information, including webinar dates and registration.
Neurociencia y Neurotecnología en Medicina Introducción a la Neuroética
Avalado por: CONBIOÉTICA and Asociación Mexicana de Neuroética
Descripción del Curso: Se aborda el uso de los nuevos desarrollos de la neurociencia, neurotecnología e inteligencia artificial, así como sus principales implicaciones en las diversas dimensiones de la vida humana incluyendo en la diversidad etnocultural. Objetivo: Analizar las bases de las principales implicaciones éticas, legales, sociales, culturales, de políticas públicas y de seguridad del desarrollo y uso de la neurociencia, neurotecnología e inteligencia artificial a nivel global y en México. Curso dirigido a: Cualquier persona interesada en las neurociencias, sin importar la profesión. (This course is in Spanish.)
Programs
Europe
Oxford Winter Neuroethics School
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom
The Oxford Winter Neuroethics School (OWNS) offers an immersive course in neuroethics research, delivered by leading scholars from the University of Oxford’s Neuroscience, Ethics and Society Team and the Uehiro Oxford Institute, and joined by renowned Neuroethics researchers from around the world. At the OWNS, we focus particularly on the ethics of neuroscience, mental health, and psychiatry, addressing issues like neuromodulation, therapeutic interventions, and treatment approaches. Our goal is to equip the next generation of neuroethicists with the tools and insights needed to address the complex methodological challenges within this evolving field.
Oxford Centre for Neuroethics
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK, United States
The Oxford Centre for Neuroethics aims to address concerns about the effects neuroscience and neurotechnologies will have on various aspects of human life. Its research focuses on five key areas: cognitive enhancement; borderline consciousness and severe neurological impairment; free will, responsibility and addiction; the neuroscience of morality and decision making; applied neuroethics.
Johannes Gutenberg Focus Program Translational Neurosciences
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
Mainz, Germany
The Focus Program Translational Neurosciences is a network of scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University working in the field of biomedical research. Research group leaders from basic and clinical research work together on an interdisciplinary basis.
Tübingen International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities
University of Tübingen
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, Tübingen, Germany
The University of Tübingen’s International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities is an interdisciplinary research centre that explores ethical problems arising from the sciences and humanities. The centre aims to conduct research in cooperation with scholars of different disciplines and promotes the advancement of the next generation of researchers in the field of ethics within the sciences and humanities
International Center for Neuroscience and Ethics (CINET)
International Center for Neuroscience and Ethics
Madrid, Spain
CINET is the International Centre for Neuroscience and Ethics created by Fundación Tatiana. It was founded with the goal of fostering interaction between cutting-edge neuroscience, psychology, and ethical questions that it raises. The interaction between the rest of the body, mental activity, and the individual’s social reality must all be explored because knowledge of the brain is inextricably linked to the totality of the human being in which it is found. To acquire this integrated view of the neurological system, interdisciplinary researchers must be trained in the hope of eventually finding a solution.
US / Canada
Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Concentration
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA, United States
The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE) is a network of scholars elaborating the law, policy and ethics of freedom of thought. Their mission is to develop social policies that will preserve and enhance freedom of thought into the 21st century.
Johns Hopkins Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD, United States
The goal of Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics’ Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed and sophisticated understanding of attendant ethical and social issues, and that philosophical and empirical analysis of the advances in brain research proceeds with an informed and sophisticated understanding of the science.
Wisconsin Neuroscience and Public Policy Program
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Madison, WI, United States
The University of Wisconsin-Madison established an integrated double degree program in Neuroscience and Public Policy Program addresses an unfortunate truth: that science policy and the law in the United States and elsewhere is frequently made by individuals who have little or no training in science, and, therefore, rely on scientists and engineers for advice, most of whom have little or no understanding of how public policy or the law is made.
Neuroethics Canada
University of British Columbia / BC Women’s / Children’s Hospital
Vancouver, BC, Canada
The University of British Columbia’s Neuroethics Canada program is an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to tackling the ethical, legal, policy and social implications of frontier technological developments in the neurosciences. Our objective is to align innovations in the brain sciences with societal, cultural and individual human values through high impact research, education and outreach.
Penn Center for Neuroscience & Society
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA, United States
The Center for Neuroscience & Society is a group of faculty and students from departments spanning the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Law, and Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania, whose work addresses the ethical, legal and social implications of neuroscience.
Emory Neuroethics Program
Emory University
Atlanta, GA, United States
The Neuroethics Program at Emory University is an interdisciplinary, inter-departmental group of scholars interested in the intersection of neuroscience, ethics, and society. The Program aims to become a center of excellence that informs responsible applications of neuroscience in research, the clinic, and society as well as engages and activates our community in neuroethics discourse.
Neuroscience and the Law Graduate Program at Michigan State University
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI, United States
Designed for students and working professionals, the Neuroscience and Law online graduate certificate provides the scientific knowledge necessary to understand how neuroscience can be applied to the field of criminal justice. Included in the curriculum are neuroscience principles, methods, ethics, enhancement, substance use and behavioral disorders. Seminars by professionals survey the ethical, legal, and social implications of neuroscientific research, in addition to the experiences they have had with neurotechnology in their respective fields.
Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, United States
The Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics was launched to ensure that values and ethics are always part of medical training, laboratory and clinical research, and professional education. The Center is designed as a platform for integrating ethics and scientific discovery more closely than ever before, generating new forms of collaboration among students, bench scientists, clinical researchers, clinicians, practicing bioethicists, academic philosophers, historians of medicine, humanities scholars and others able to bring their disciplinary perspectives to bear on the ethical challenges posed by present and future biomedical advances.
Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
Stanford University
Stanford, CA, United States
The Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics is dedicated to the interdisciplinary research and education in biomedical experts, and provides clinical and ressearch ethics consultation. They serve as a scholarly resource on emerging ethical issues raised by medicine and biomedical research.
Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences
Stanford University
Stanford, CA, United States
Stanford University’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, directed by Professor Hank Greely, examines biotech discoveries in the context of the law, weighing their impact on society and the law’s role in shaping that impact. The Center is part of the Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology.
Georgetown Center for Clinical Bioethics
Georgetown University
Washington, DC, United States
The Edmund D. Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics (PCCB) at Georgetown University Medical Center was established over two decades ago in order to create a center of excellence, filling a unique need for bioethics that is directly oriented towards clinical medicine and strongly rooted in the Catholic and Jesuit tradition.
Dalhousie Department of Bioethics
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
The Department of Bioethics is an academic department at Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Our primary focus is on advancing ethics in and of health care practice.
Montreal Clinical Research Institute
Montreal Clinical Research Institute
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
The Neuroethics Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) pursues research to address the spectrum of challenges in neurological and psychiatric care such as providing quality patient information, diminishing stigma, and promoting respectful healthcare services. Their research program aims at bridging these various challenges to identify practical solutions. Research activities are funded by grants, scholarships, fellowships, and private foundations. They cover a broad and evolving range of ethical and social issues associated with research, healthcare, public services and public policy as well as foundational issues in neuroethics. Several other studies have also expanded the scope of the Unit beyond the context of neuroscience and clinical neurology and psychiatry.
Africa
Asia
Latin America
Oceania
Virtual
Neuroscience and the Humanities
CINET / UIMP
The Master in Neuroscience and the Humanities is an interdisciplinary postgraduate program jointly organized by the International Center for Neuroscience and Ethics (CINET) and the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (UIMP). The program brings together neuroscience, philosophy, psychology, law, and the social sciences to examine the ethical, legal, and societal implications of contemporary brain science. Delivered fully online through live synchronous sessions, the program runs from September to June and carries 60 ECTS credits. It is designed for early-career researchers and professionals interested in neuroethics and the broader humanistic dimensions of neuroscience.
Ethical Considerations in Neurotech
Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University
This fully asynchronous microcredential teaches students how to conduct an analysis of ethical issues that may emerge in the application of neurotechnology. Students will explore a spectrum of neurotech use-cases (clinical, wellness, consumer, corporate, defense, and security) and the ethical issues involved. At the end of this course, students will develop the skills to critically assess ethical issues in neurotech, and compile and communicate their analysis using a standardized template for evaluating a neurotechnology product from five different perspectives (Technology, Analysis, Legal, Ethical and Social). There on demand office hours with course instructors.
Teaching
Working Bibliography of Neuroethics
Commentary – Liana Buniak, Martina Darragh, and James Giordano; Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine (2014)
Given the growth, range, and rapid maturation of the field of neuroethics we provide an iterative, four-part document that affords a repository of international papers, books, and chapters that address the field in overview, and present discussion(s) of more particular aspects and topics of neuroethics. These works present resources offering iterative descriptions, definitions and criticisms of neural processes involved in moral cognition and behaviors, and also provide a historical view of this field, and insights to its developing canon. Part 1, Part 2
Neuroethics
Syllabus – Jonathan D. Moreno & Martha Farah, University of Pennsylvania (2012)
The syllabus provides a course introduction, grading scheme, class schedule, and a reading list for a university level neuroethics course.
Brains, Identity, and Moral Agency
Syllabus – Steven E. Hyman, Harvard (2014)
The syllabus provides course requirements, assignments, topics, suggested readings, and a class schedule for a university level neuroscience course addressing ethics and policy.
Neuroscience and Neuroethics Syllabi
Syllabi – Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania
The Center maintains a collection of related neuroscience and neuroethics syllabi for high school, undergraduate, and graduate courses developed across the country.
Law and Neuroscience
Book – Owen D. Jones, Jeffrey D. Schall, Francis X. Shen (2014)
Law and Neuroscience is the first coursebook to cover the newly emerging field that explores both the promise within and the limitations of the intersection of these two disciplines. This book has four main purposes: 1) To introduce readers to how brain science is (and is not) already being used in a number of legal contexts; 2) To provide a user-friendly foundation for understanding how the human brain works, and how new techniques are being used to study, monitor and manipulate the brain; 3) To examine pathways by which neuroscience may aid, or harm, the legal system; and 4) To help students think critically about the present status and future possibilities of the law/neuroscience intersection. The book includes engaging, informative, and provocative excerpts from cases, commentary, scientific articles, and news accounts. Dispersed through each chapter are notes and questions designed to challenge, provoke, inform, and inspire.
Video Library
Videos – Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania
You can find video-taped lectures on a variety of topics within neuroethics on the Center for Neuroscience & Society’s Video Library. They may be helpful in preparing your lectures, and you can also assign them to students.
Inside the Brain
Big Picture, Wellcome Trust (2013)
The Inside the Brain issue of Big Picture provides articles and multimedia describing how research helps scientists look inside the brain, and includes a section on ethical questions.
Interdisciplinary Network on Teaching of Ethics for Neuroscientists
Institute for Science Ethics and Innovation, University of Manchester — 2014
The network brings together scientists, ethics educators, and scholarly researchers investigating the ethical and social implications of scientific advances in neurosciences, and provides related resources and information on their website.
Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching
Neuroethics (2012)
The article, Neuroethics, Neuroeducation, and Classroom Teaching: Where the Brain Sciences Meet Pedagogy, written by M. Hardiman, et al. and published in Neuroethics, suggests ways in which ethical challenges can be met and provide a model for teacher preparation that allows legitimate research to inform instruction design.
Resources for Teaching Neuroethics
Virtual Mentor, American Medical Association (2012)
The article, written by D. Elkin et al. and published in the Virtual Mentor journal, outlines important neuroethics concepts, controversies, and discussion topics for students.
Narrative Perspectives: Neuroethics in Film and Literature
Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania
The Center maintains a list of films and books which investigate neuroscience and neuroethics issues.
Neuroethics for Kids
University of Washington
The neuroethics chapter in the Neuroscience for Kids website provides answers to some basic ethical questions kids may have about how the brain is studied and manipulated.
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