"It offers no real assurance to public officials, investors or scientists that the University has a sound system in place to mitigate institutional conflicts of interest," Green said. "It contradicts one of the report's basic principles...that academic and fiduciary responsibilities must be thoroughly separated if serious institutional conflicts are to be avoided."

But administrators defended Harvard's policies.

Vice President for Finance Allen J. Proctor '74 said last month that the current policies were in the "best interests of the University."

Still, Carnesale left the door open for a reexamination, saying the University's science policy was continually evolving.

"Now that the report is available, our intention is to examine that carefully...and where it might be appropriate, to further refine the policy that was adopted," the provost said.

In addition, several faculty members of the Science Policy Committee defended some or all of the University's new policies.

"The Corporation in its wisdom makes decisions, but it isn't answerable back to the committee," said committee member and Professor of Biology Richard M. Losick. "I certainly don't feel slighted in the least, and I doubt anybody else on the committee does."

Action

Late last winter, Carnesale said, the University needed to make a decision on whether to accept equity as partial consideration for licenses.

In February, the provost wrote a short note to Green asking when the report would be available.

Green responded that the report would be ready "by the end of the term."

But the University decided that "there was a need to develop and implement a policy dealing with one of the issues examined by the report," namely the acceptance of equity in license agreements, Carnesale said.

So Carnesale and Proctor co-authored a March 23 discussion memorandum on the issue. The recommendations in that memo formed the basis for the University's new policy--and it is those recommendations, some committee members say, that run contrary to the spirit of the report released four months later.

Without the committee's report in hand, Carnesale said he attempted to remain faithful to the upcoming recommendations. "We examined the paperwork that was available to us and made a recommendation," he said.

Without informing Green or any committee members, Rudenstine put the memo on the docket for the May 1 Corporation meeting, at which the Corporation adopted the new policy.