The W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics (the Centre) is an interdisciplinary research unit within the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. The Centre was created in 1993 with endowments by W. Maurice Young (LLD) and the Bentall Foundation. The Centre’s affairs are managed by a Coordinating Committee representing faculty, students and research associates, chaired by the Director of the Centre.
The Centre’s approach to other UBC academic and research units follows from our position as an interdisciplinary academic centre, and from our mission to advance the research agenda of applied ethics. A number of departments and units—including Animal Welfare, the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability, Nursing and Philosophy—have contributed outstanding students to the Centre, while our research and teaching/supervision now ties us to Medical Genetics, Law, Political Science, Journalism, Forestry, Botany and Computing Sciences. These relationships and the products of our collaborations place the Centre at the forefront of the movement to create “transdisciplinary” research.