About the Centre

Our aim is to help students, professionals and employees to identify, analyse and respond to the ethical issues they encounter in their disciplines and their working lives. We carry out teaching and research in applied ethics, and offer training and consultancy to professionals, businesses and public bodies. Our activities seek to raise the profile of ethics, not just at the University of Leeds but throughout higher education and professional life.  Funded initially by a HEFCE grant of £2.6 million, we were founded in 2005 as a national Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.

We work in close partnership with experts and practitioners from other fields, who are the people best-placed to identify the ethical dilemmas they face in their work. For our undergraduate teaching at Leeds, this means teaming up with academics across the University to design teaching that’s relevant to their students. In our professional activities, it means drawing on the experience of the people and organisations we work with, using case studies to bring out issues that they recognise and can engage with, and providing opportunities for professionals to meet and discuss ethical issues.

We organise workshops and conferences to share practices in learning and teaching, and research.  Our research seminar series is possible by an active research community with links across the University and includes a number of research fellows and PhD students. We’ve developed a range of resources for learning and teaching, and offer taught degree courses in applied and professional ethics.