Hastings Center

The Hastings Center, founded in 1969, is an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit bioethics research institute dedicated to examination of essential questions in health care, biotechnology, and the environment. The center has over 200 fellows, including many physicians, attorneys, PhDs and bioethicists.

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Publications

The center is best known as the publisher of Hastings Center Report and IRB: Ethics & Human Research, which feature scholarship and commentary in bioethics for readers worldwide. Both are published six times per year. The Report also periodically features special reports, published as supplements, from the center's research projects.

Research

The Center's projects, carried out by interdisciplinary research teams, range from "stem cell politics", to globalization and its impact on health status, to "science in the age of big pharma". Primary research areas include genetics and biotechnology, health care and health policy, ethics, science, the environment, and international science ethics. The center strives to frame and explore issues that inform professional practice, public conversation, and social policy.

The center conducts seminar-style meetings to review developments in science and policy, frame legal and social issues, and in-depth critical reflection on fundamental principles and values. Center staff members write and speak on a variety of topics and assist members of the press and others.

The center is funded by grant money, private donations, and subscriptions. The Hastings Center accepts unrestricted, general operating support from for-profit corporations. In 2006, the Center received gifts from two corporations (Roche and Affymetrix) that represented less than three percent of total operating revenue for 2006 and ten percent of all unrestricted gifts.

The Morison Library serves as a resource for Center research associates, fellows, visiting scholars, and others.