Research & Ideas

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

A man with glasses, wearing a black suit and white shirt, smiling against a dark background.

Jason Furman: Capitalism Is Working. It Could Work Better.

On Open to Debate, the Harvard economist defended free market competition—with meaningful government involvement. 

by Schuyler Velasco

Megan Shutzer ’10 first traveled to Africa during her junior year; she spent a semester traveling around Tanzania on a program learning about wildlife ecology and the conservation industry. Here, she is shown near Lake Natron in northern Tanzania, where she did a homestay with a Masai family (including some of the children shown).

Megan Shutzer interviews those who fled election violence in Kenya

In a refugee camp near Nakuru, Kenya, Megan Shutzer ’10 learns that fallout from the 2007 election violence persists.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

The University of Ghana campus

At the University of Ghana, Audrey White studies the history of the slave trade

At "slave castles" and the University of Ghana, Audrey White ’10 researches the slave trade.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Illustration by Stuart Bradford

New media transform college classrooms

Visual, audio, and interactive media are transforming the college classroom

by Craig Lambert

Courtesy of The Ayn Rand Institute

Biographical sketch of Ayn Rand

Brief life of an iconoclastic individualist

by Jennifer Burns

Orhan Pamuk

An undergraduate ponders Orhan Pamuk's Norton Lectures

Ledecky Undergraduate Fellow Spencer Lenfield listens to Orhan Pamuk’s Norton Lectures.

John Mugane

Professor John Mugane directs Harvard’s African language program

Meet the director of Harvard’s African language program.

English and the humanities in decline?

A new lament about the status of English critiques the Harvard department's new curriculum.

McElroy's article is the cover story in the September 11 issue of <em>Science</em>

Wind Powering China

China could produce seven times its current electricity needs using wind alone.

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.