Online Fellowship Certificate Program

About the Program

Grounded in more than 30 years of experience in educating adult and professional learners in bioethics, the Online Fellowship Certificate Program is designed to expand the availability of the Center's bioethics education. Bioethics learners explore their interests through weekly seminars on current and emerging bioethical issues. There are approximately 75 pages of reading per week. Sessions are highly interactive, and learners will be expected to actively engage in detailed discussion of the bioethical principles and problems raised in the readings.

The program welcomes learners from across the nation and the globe with a variety of experiences and backgrounds, enabling participants to expand their perspectives, critique, challenge, and hold each other's thinking to the highest standards of rigor and creativity. A keystone of the experience is the strong community that learners—a diverse group of professionals from medicine, nursing, law, social work, and other academic fields—build throughout the course.

Designed Specifically for Working Professionals

The program is designed to enable working professionals to continue in their full-time jobs, although learners often succeed in requesting that their workloads be lightened over the duration of the course, so that they can participate fully in the many activities of the Center for Bioethics.

Participants will engage in a wide-ranging exploration of bioethics, beginning with its historical foundations and theoretical frameworks, gaining familiarity with theories of justice, rights-based and communitarian perspectives, deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. The online fellowship certificate program includes feminist approaches, a discussion of meta-ethics, and the role of ethics committees in case consultation. Key topics in clinical ethics, research ethics and public health ethics include, for example, research oversight in the developing world, rationing, reproductive ethics, end-of-life care, organ allocation, and medical aid in dying. Specialized topics such as neuroethics, artificial intelligence (AI), and genomics are also covered. Additionally, the program addresses critical issues like racism, ableism, research scandals, and compassionate use of investigational medicinal products.

How to Apply for the Program

Applications Open

The Online Fellowship Certificate Program welcomes learners from across the nation and the globe with a variety of experiences and backgrounds, enabling participants to expand their perspectives, critique, challenge, and hold each other's thinking to the highest standards of rigor and creativity. The application requirements for the online certificate in bioethics program are listed in the online application portal, as well as below.

Program Cost and Institutional Support

The course fee is $14,750 USD for the 2025 academic year. If you are seeking financial support from your sponsoring institution to participate in the online certificate program, the Center can provide an explanatory letter to applicants who would like help approaching their sponsoring institutions with such a request. Please reach out to bioethics_certificate@hms.harvard.edu to request this letter.

Required Application Materials

You must provide a completed online application containing:

• Your current curriculum vitae
• A statement of purpose describing the reasons for your interest in the online certificate in bioethics, including any particular topics or questions you are most interested in exploring. This letter must be 750 words or fewer in length and is an important opportunity for you to tell us about yourself, your interests, and your motivations in pursuing training in bioethics.
• Two (2) letters of reference, at least one of which is from a supervisor or key staff person who works at the institution where you are currently employed. Please also make sure that your references include their name, number and email address in their signature at the bottom of the letter.

Questions?

Please email bioethics_certificate@hms.harvard.edu if you have questions.