The University will receive a $290,000 grant for research in the scientific field next year, Benjamin Strong, chairman of the Board of Control of the Higgins Trust, announced recently.

The grant is the largest in the seven-year history of the Trust and is $15,000 more than was distributed last year. Columbia, Princeton, and Yale will receive equal amounts.

The University plans to devote the bulk of its allocation to astronomy, chemistry, physics, and the medical sciences. According to the will of the late Eugene Higgins, the income must be used "to foster education in natural and physical science, to promote the general advancement of science by investigation, research, and experiment, and to encourage the application of the knowledge so obtained to the improvement and benefit of mankind."

A unique feature of the Higgins Trust is that the University may dispose of its grant within any scientific field it chooses. In the past the money has often been split up among as many as 20 or 30 projects.

The Higgins Trust, which has a value of $34,000,000, is one of the largest educational bequests in the country.