And with the federal government on a seven-year course to balance the budget, universities across the nation are fearing massive cuts in basic research funding by the government.

Those fears, coupled with the above national trends, may lead the University to become ever more reliant on industrially sponsored research.

The Recommendations

All of the above, plus changes in health care funding and evolving relationships among Harvard's teaching hospitals, motivated the committee to examine science policy problems from a University-wide perspective for the first time in its history.

"It was a vulnerability. We couldn't explain to people in Washington what exactly our procedures and policies were," says Green. "So I felt we should have a University-wide discussion even though the parts of Harvard are so different."

Green's committee reflected that University-wide approach, drawing members from four of the University's nine faculties: the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the Medical School, the School of Public Health (SPH) and the Kennedy School of Government.

The committee met periodically while Green was still provost, but put its activities on hold when he resigned in April of 1994, according to committee member and Cabot Professor of Biology Richard M. Losick.

Green spent most of this past summer finishing up the report.

Ultimately, the committee came up with the following set of recommendations:

1) The report's first recommendation is to enhance both the scope and charge of the current Committee on Patents and Copyrights.

That would be done by expanding its duties to include oversight of all scientific-sponsored research at Harvard. The committee would be renamed the University Committee on Scientific Research to reflect that new mission.

Haber calls the proposed committee a "major advance."

"I'm sure that this kind of policy is going to evolve continuously, so this is one of our major recommendations," he says.

2) The committee recommends allowing scientists under research agreements a 30-day delay in the public release of their research. The delay would be useful in helping the firm and the scientist decide whether or not to seek a patent for innovative work done under the contract.

According to the report, the 30-day delay would "not materially impede the progress of science." Rather, it would keep sponsored research profitable and maintain the incentive for private firms to fund it.