Overview
Established in 1636, Harvard is America’s oldest institution of higher learning. Over the last four centuries, Harvard has grown from nine students with a single master to an enrollment of nearly 20,000 degree candidates, including undergraduates and graduate students. The faculty numbers more than 9,000 when Harvard Medical School appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals are included. Harvard is the third largest employer in Massachusetts, according to the Boston Business Journal, with over 17,000 employees in Boston and Cambridge.
In pursuit of Harvard’s mission to advance new ideas and promote enduring knowledge, Harvard strives to create an academic environment in which outstanding students and scholars from around the world are continually challenged and inspired to do their best possible work.
In laboratories throughout Harvard University, researchers are turning artifacts of the imagination into facts of life. Phenomena that have been shrouded in darkness for ages – from ocean storms to cancer – are being penetrated by the light of research. In these laboratories, the future is outrunning the present.
Harvard is committed to disseminating this new knowledge and transferring new innovations in ways that benefit the public health and well being in Massachusetts and around the world.