The Guggenheim grants, some of the most prestigious awards for mid-career scholars, were announced late last week and six Harvard professors as well as several members of the greater Boston community found themselves among the recipients.

The Guggenheim grants provide Fellows with periods of time, from six to 12 months, in which they can work with as much creative freedom as possible.

Peter M. Sacks, University professor of English and American literature and language, received a fellowship for his continued work on composition and academic critique of poetry.

Sacks, who teaches English 184, "Fundamentals of Lyric Poetry and English Cpw: Poetry Workshop," has written two collections of poems Promised Lands and Natal Command.

The second "recollects some elements from the Natal province of South Africa where I'm from," Sacks said.

The fellowship will help Sacks write more poems and another book.

"I hope [the judges] saw something in the work that was valuable and worth supporting," he said. "My work as a poet challenges and nourishes my work as a teacher of poetry."

James E. Alt, professor of government and associate of Winthrop House, who received an honorary degree in 1986, received a fellowship to help him continue his research into political parties, institutions and fiscal policy.

"In my application, I outlined a proposal to develop some research I've been doing on balanced budget laws, political parties and taxing in the states," Alt said.

Alt said his interest in these topics developed from his course on the Political Economy of Public Decision.

"[The subject] is timely and people are interested." Alt said. "This is a topic at the heart of my scholarship."

Mario Biagioli, professor of the history of science, received a fellowship to continue his research into contemporary styles of authorship and economies of credit in the past 20 years.

"The topic of authorship in science has quite a lot of relevance today, especially because of the issue of fraud in science," Biagioli said.

He said that the large number of fraud cases over the past 10 years, and the complexity of assigning responsibility, has caused much debate over the definition of an author.

Biagioli will stay at Harvard during his period of fellowship. He will continue current research and interview members of the biomedical field who live in the Boston area.