But top administrators see the Allston campus as the lynchpin of their strategy to improve. With a successful science campus in Allston, administorators say the University will remain at—or, in some areas, join—the forefront of scientific research. Without it, they fear Harvard may be doomed to second-rate programs in key emerging areas.

Hyman wrote that the science hub in Allston would be used “to keep Harvard at the cutting edge.”

Allston development will focus on addressing “the increasing centrality of large-scale new platform technologies to our researchers’ needs (ranging from gene sequencing to high performance computing),” Hyman wrote.

Although some development has been possible in the historic North Yard home of FAS science, Cambridge space is scarce.

The new Biological Research Infrastructure, the Laboratory for Interface Science and Engineering—which includes a state-of-the-art clean room—and the planned Northwest building, will take up about 670,000 square feet, and an additional 500,000 square feet of science expansion are planned for the next 25 years.

But Summers and other University leaders say this won’t be enough for Harvard to stay afloat in the sciences. In his October letter to the community, Summers said that even with expansion plans in Cambridge and the new 525,000-square-foot New Research Building at the medical school, “we will before long confront an insufficiency of space for science.”

“If we aspire to full-scale participation in the approaches shaping much of the leading edge of scientific discovery, Allston should figure prominently in the future of Harvard science, as home to a robust critical mass of scientific activity,” he wrote.

The task force recommended 11 other “promising areas of inquiry” that represent some of the University’s weak spots: innovative computing, origins of life, quantum science and technology, neuroscience, systems biology, chemical biology, global health, microbial diversity and global infectious diseases, environment, clinical research and a center for collaborative science. But it emphasized the improvement of engineering as central to the future of University science.

“It will be essential, if Harvard is to maintain its leadership position in the sciences, for the University to make significant new investments in technology development. Harvard cannot simply be a user of new tools that happen to emerge,” the report says. “Allston offers us the opportunity to expand our efforts in engineering and applied science and thus to increase our capacity to develop new technologies and new scientific tools.”

The report also echoes University leaders in calling for closer ties to industry, especially through so-called “tech transfer,” which allows University discoveries to be marketed to industry.

The task force’s conclusions meant that in order to build and maintain strong sciences, Harvard must construct new labs to attract top faculty, according to Kathy A. Spiegelman, the University’s top planner.

WHAT WILL IT LOOK LIKE?

Spiegelman said the planned science campus will be geared toward interdisciplinary work, echoing Summers’ October call for “new kinds of space.” The physical layout of most current science laboratories inhibits cutting-edge collaborations, she said.

In modeling the campus, planners and scientists alike have looked to other examples of ambitious science expansion. One of the most frequently mentioned is UCSF’s new Mission Bay campus, which is cited throughout the science task force report.

Those who have seen the site heap praise on UCSF for an enormously successful implementation of a brand-new science expansion. While there are some important differences, Mission Bay and Allston share many similarities: it’s a separate campus centering on the life sciences, and it is being constructed in a run-down section of the city on waterfront property that used to be a railyard.