“We’re really doing something extremely novel here,” Gabrieli says. “We’re inventing as we go along.”

And Gabrieli maintains there has been progress throughout the last nine months through meetings coordinating efforts of individual partners.

“There’s a lot going on, and its been happening very intensively,” Gabrieli says. “We’re managing a lot of pots at the same time.”

Despite the delays, Gabrieli praised Harvard’s research and training efforts, and the impact the University’s “intellectual firepower” will have on the rest of the partnership.

Harvard officials say the research that the University develops will be shared with the other members of the partnership.

“Harvard has been an excellent partner in working to aggressively pursue its mandate,” Gabrieli says. “I’m confident that their research will become important to our overall strategy.”

Harvard’s Noam agrees, saying that Harvard’s involvement will be key to creating a base of knowledge for the partnership, and for the afterschool field as a whole.

“We have been very active, indeed, in laying the groundwork for this five-year initiative,” Noam says. “It’s an exciting time in this field and it is great that Harvard is taking a leadership role.”

—Staff writer Imtiyaz H. Delawala can be reached at delawala@fas.harvard.edu.