"I expect that during the coming year or two, the dean of the Institute will, with help from faculty members and others, shape an academic plan for the new Institute," Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said last week.

And in response to reporters' questions at last week's press conference, Rudenstine painted the Institute in only broad strokes, calling it "rare" and "very, very unusual."

"It means you are pushing the edges," he said. "All institutes of advanced study share the single goal of furthering knowledge where only there was ignorance before."

At that time, Rudenstine sketched a vision of the new Institute as a knowledge-seeking group similar to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study or the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

Representatives of those institutes said they welcome the new Radcliffe Institute to their family of advanced study, though they voiced confusion about how Radcliffe will ultimately define itself academically.

A Model Institute

According to Rudenstine, the new Institute's closest parallel will be the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research organization located near Princeton University, but not officially affiliated with the school.

Founded in 1930, the Princeton Institute invites scholars in fields as wide-ranging as history and physics to engage in pure research for one to two years.