Research & Ideas

Discover Harvard research, scholarship, and ideas shaping the world—from science and technology to policy, education, and the humanities.

Woman in a navy dress smiling while standing on a walkway with a blurred background.

Öberg to Lead Harvard Faculty Recruitment and Retention

The astrochemist will become senior vice provost for faculty affairs this summer.

by Jonathan Shaw

Scenes from Havana, taken in March 2007

Cuba

Raúl Castro is changing Cuba. Will the United States respond?

This map shows soil types for all of Africa. A researcher might use it with other map layers to study agricultural productivity among countries with similar soils, comparing, for example, the agrarian practices of Francophone and Anglophone countries.

Mapping Africa

Africa Map, a project of Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis, brings GIS capabilities to research on the entire continent.

Theresa Betancourt with children in Sierra Leone

Helping Those Most in Need

With support from the Center on the Developing Child, Harvard scholars aim to help some of the most vulnerable groups of children.

Who Was Lincoln, Really?

Honoring the two-hundredth anniversary of his birth, Lincoln scholars attempt to cut through myth and legend to reveal the real man.

Obama's Daunting International Agenda

Journalist David E. Sanger's new book outlines the huge international security challenges facing the new administration.

Does Thinking Make It So?

In The Cure Within, historian of science Anne Harrington explores the medical history of the mind-body connection.

by Erin O’Donnell

Rosa Estrella Ortega Roa has big plans for the unit where she lives with her two-year-old grandson. Although the walls and ceiling of her kitchen are still unfinished... [click the images below for more]

For Santiago's Poor, Housing with Dignity

An innovative housing initiative with deep Harvard ties lets families in Chile who once lived illegally become homeowners.

Counterterrorism and Democracy

The most effective ways to fight terrorism do not involve important tradeoffs between security and democratic principles.

Itinerant Scholar

The interests of Berkman Center fellow Lewis Hyde include Thoreau; writing poetry; and intellectual property in the digital age—and he manages to draw connections between them.

The slave trade shipped Africans to the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia; where victims ended up depended in part on which trade route their captors used. In total, the four routes ferried nearly 20 million people out of Africa.

Slavery’s Sway

Interdisciplinary economist Nathan Nunn explores the problem of African underdevelopment by drawing on—and unearthing—historical data about slavery.

by Paul Gleason