Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Name	Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Formation	1986
Type	Research institute
Location	Santa Clara, California, United States
Leader title	Executive Director
Leader name	Laura Nash
Affiliation	Santa Clara University

Contents

Markkula Center for Applied Ethics is an applied ethics research and outreach institute based at Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. The center engages in ethical analysis and practical guidance across technology, business, healthcare, public policy, and education, partnering with corporations, universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies. It connects scholars and practitioners from institutions such as Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and University of Oxford to address contemporary ethical challenges.

History

The center was founded in 1986 with support from entrepreneur Michael Markkula and links to Santa Clara University traditions dating to Jesuit education and figures associated with Ignatius of Loyola and Pedro Arrupe. Early collaborations involved scholars from Columbia University, University of Chicago, Yale University, Princeton University, and University of Notre Dame, and drew upon influences from ethicists connected to Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, John Rawls, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Kantian ethics debates. During the 1990s the center expanded programming around business ethics with input from leaders at General Electric, IBM, Intel, Adobe Systems, and policy conversations with United States Congress staff and advisors linked to Clinton administration initiatives. In the 2000s it broadened into technology ethics amid engagements with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, University of Cambridge, University of Washington, Google, Apple Inc., Microsoft, Facebook, and agencies including National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and Federal Trade Commission. The center’s initiatives have intersected with public debates involving figures associated with Tim Berners-Lee, Vinton Cerf, Sheryl Sandberg, Elon Musk, and legal contexts like Griswold v. Connecticut-era privacy concerns and regulatory discussions resembling General Data Protection Regulation-style frameworks.

The center’s stated mission emphasizes applied ethics by integrating scholarship and practice, collaborating with entities such as World Health Organization, United Nations, European Commission, California State Legislature, San Jose State University, and regional hospitals like Kaiser Permanente, Stanford Health Care, and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Program areas include technology ethics, business ethics, healthcare ethics, journalism ethics, and civic ethics, often coordinated with partners including The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Associated Press, Bloomberg, and professional associations such as American Medical Association, Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Society for Business Ethics. The center convenes advisory boards featuring members from Cisco Systems, Intel Corporation, Oracle Corporation, HP Inc., PayPal, Salesforce, and nonprofit partners like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Ford Foundation.

Scholarly output from the center includes reports, case studies, and frameworks influencing dialogues at conferences such as TED, RSA Conference, SXSW, Moral Machines Workshop, and academic symposia at American Philosophical Association meetings and Association for Computing Machinery conferences. Publications have intersected with work from researchers at Oxford Internet Institute, Berkman Klein Center, Center for Humane Technology, Future of Humanity Institute, National Academy of Sciences, and Brookings Institution. Topics addressed include algorithmic fairness debated alongside scholarship from Cynthia Dwork, Kate Crawford, Timnit Gebru, Joy Buolamwini, and Suresh Venkatasubramanian; privacy dialogues in the context of contributions by Helen Nissenbaum, Daniel Solove, and Shoshana Zuboff; and corporate responsibility issues linked to analyses by Michael Porter, R. Edward Freeman, Milton Friedman, and John Doerr. The center’s materials inform case studies used at business schools such as Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Wharton School, Kellogg School of Management, and INSEAD.

The center supports curricular offerings at Santa Clara University including undergraduate courses, graduate seminars, and executive education programs in partnership with institutions like Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, UC Berkeley School of Law, Columbia Law School, and Georgetown University Law Center. It produces classroom resources modeled on pedagogies from Paulo Freire, John Dewey, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings, and collaborates with secondary education networks such as Common Core State Standards Initiative-aligned programs and initiatives of Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Student engagement includes internships and fellowships with corporate partners like Adobe, Intel, Cisco, and nonprofit placements at Electronic Frontier Foundation and ACLU.

The center offers consulting and workshops for startups in Silicon Valley, municipal governments including City of San Jose, public school districts like San Jose Unified School District, and healthcare systems including Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. It has run public-facing ethics dialogues linked to civic forums featuring participants from Pew Research Center, Gallup, Public Policy Institute of California, and collaborative projects with Goodwill Industries, United Way, and Boys & Girls Clubs of America. The center’s convenings have intersected with legal practitioners from firms such as Wilson Sonsini, Fenwick & West, Latham & Watkins, and Morrison & Foerster and with standards bodies like W3C, IEEE Standards Association, and ISO.

Governance arrangements include advisory councils and trustees drawn from academia, industry, philanthropy, and religious communities, with connections to donors and institutions such as Michael Markkula, Santa Clara University, Arthur Rock, John Doerr, Bechtel Corporation, and foundations including William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation. Funding sources have included corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, program fees, and individual donations, alongside collaborative grants with research partners such as National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and interdisciplinary centers at Stanford University and UC Berkeley.

Category:Ethics organizations