Founded in 1979, the Harvard Negotiation Project's mission is to improve the theory, teaching, and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution, so that people can deal more constructively with conflicts ranging from the interpersonal to the international.

The Project, or HNP as it is commonly known, inspired many of the organizations that together created the Program on Negotiation consortium in 1983.

HNP is results-oriented.The work of faculty, staff, and students associated with HNP routinely moves back and forth between the worlds of theory and practice to develop ideas that practitioners find useful and scholars sound. Its courses continually explore better methods for encouraging habits of mind and discourse that promote constructive problem-solving.

HNP's activities can best be categorized under four headings:

Theory-building;
Education and training;
Real-world intervention; and
Written materials for practitioners,
   including the public at large.

These activities are synergistic. Theory is developed out of successful intervention efforts, while obstacles highlight areas for future work. Theory is tested and refined in trying to teach others the skills to achieve similar results. Teaching also hones facilitation skills and techniques that prove useful in the field, while fieldwork makes teaching more concrete and credible. Ideas and tools that have been tested, refined, and clarified by successful interventions and teaching are then captured and disseminated through publications, which in turn stimulate new opportunities and useful feedback.

HNP also encompasses the work of the Harvard International Negotiation Initiative, directed by Dan Shapiro.