January 6, 2026 // Diocese

ND Receives $50 Million Grant to Explore AI Ethics

Todays Catholic

The University of Notre Dame has been awarded a $50.8 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to support the DELTA Network: Faith-Based Ethical Formation for a World of Powerful AI. Led by the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (ECG), this grant – the largest awarded to Notre Dame by a private foundation in the University’s history – will fund the further development of a shared, faith-based ethical framework that scholars, religious leaders, tech leaders, teachers, journalists, young people, and the broader public can draw upon to discern appropriate uses of artificial intelligence.

The grant will also support the establishment of a robust, interconnected network that will provide practical resources to help navigate challenges posed by rapidly developing AI. Based on principles and values from Christian traditions, the framework is designed to be accessible to people of all faith perspectives.

“We are deeply grateful to Lilly Endowment for its generous support of this critically important initiative,” said Holy Cross Father Robert A. Dowd, president of the University of Notre Dame. “Pope Leo XIV calls for us all to work to ensure that AI is ‘intelligent, relational, and guided by love,’ reflecting the design of God the Creator. As a Catholic university that seeks to promote human flourishing, Notre Dame is well-positioned to build bridges between religious leaders and educators, and those creating and using new technologies, so that they might together explore the moral and ethical questions associated with AI.”

With the support of a $539,000 planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. awarded in October of 2024, the Notre Dame Institute for Ethics and the Common Good spent the past year mapping the landscape of faith-informed work in AI ethics. Drawing on insights from more than 200 conversations with representatives of these various constituencies, the ECG created DELTA, a Christian-inspired ethical framework that stands for Dignity, Embodiment, Love, Transcendence, and Agency. The framework was launched at the inaugural Notre Dame Summit on AI, Faith, and Human Flourishing in September of 2025.

“Lilly Endowment’s continued support enables Notre Dame to address one of the defining questions of our time – how to guide the use of artificial intelligence with wisdom, responsibility, and a commitment to human dignity,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “As a leading global Catholic research university with deep partnerships across technology, faith, and academia, we are uniquely positioned to convene these conversations.”

“The depth of engagement and support from the wide variety of participants at the Notre Dame summit for further development of the DELTA framework was most compelling,” said N. Clay Robbins, Lilly Endowment’s chairman and CEO. “Lilly Endowment is pleased to support this effort that acknowledges the beneficial opportunities AI offers while encouraging uses of AI that align with important moral and ethical values that draw from religious insights and traditions.”

Notre Dame’s DELTA network will be organized around interdisciplinary and intergenerational communities of practice focused on education, pastoral ministry, and public engagement. The communities of practice will come together to learn about and engage with the principles of the faith-based ethical framework. They will nurture relationships between those who are developing AI technology and those in education, workplaces, religious communities, and a variety of public settings who must discern ethical ways to use AI.

OSV News photo/Evan Cobb, University of Notre Dame
Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor and director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good and the Ethics Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, gives the keynote address at a Notre Dame summit on artificial intelligence on September 23, 2025.

As part of the project, the ECG will launch a series of programs to encourage and support young adults to lead with convictions shaped by DELTA principles. In addition, by developing hubs in communities in Silicon Valley and the northeastern U.S., the institute will invite tech leaders and the public to engage with DELTA principles through issue-focused events and retreats.

Each community of practice will be supported by a timely, high-impact slate of resources, programs, and events that will enable and leverage sustained engagement with the DELTA framework, developing a common language and set of tools that will energize and guide conversations around the ethics of AI and its applications.

DELTA builds on collaborations already in place around technology ethics, including the university’s partnership with IBM through the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab.

“Here at Notre Dame, we’re committed to shaping public thought about how humans can flourish in an AI-driven world by drawing upon our Catholic and Christian tradition,” said Meghan Sullivan, the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and director of ECG and the Notre Dame Ethics Initiative. “With this work, Notre Dame and ECG will deepen our mission to grow networks of corporate leaders, faith leaders, educators, storytellers, and others to advance ethics and the common good. Given the monumental impact that AI will have on our lives, this work is more vital than ever.”

Notre Dame has always focused on ethics in both research and formation. In 2024, the university intensified its commitment to the field with the launch of the university-wide Ethics Initiative, which aims to establish Notre Dame as a premier global destination for the study of ethics, offering superb training for future generations of ethicists and moral leaders, a platform for engaging the Catholic moral tradition with other modes of inquiry, and an opportunity to forge insights into some of the most significant ethical issues of our time.

A signature element of the Ethics Initiative, the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good facilitates interdisciplinary research in foundational and applied ethics, coordinates projects that cross departments and units, and supports ethics-related education and public engagement efforts.

Carrie Gates is the associate director of media relations for the University of Notre Dame.