Harvard Medical School released a slew of committee reports last week as part of its strategic planning process, outlining significant expansions in areas like neuroscience and calling for the creation of a bioengineering program.

The seven reports have yet to receive approval from administrators, and officials in both Harvard's central administration and at the Medical School level were hesitant to discuss prospects for approval or implementation.

But the positive reception from Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier suggests that the proposals will likely receive crucial backing from top administrators. Flier announced that the release of the white papers concludes the first phase of his strategic planning process launched last October, as the reports lay the groundwork for “prioritization and detailed planning” in the fall.

The most detailed and substantial of the seven reports called for the creation of a University-wide bioengineering initiative. The report was commissioned by the Harvard University Science Engineering Committee (HUSEC), which is tasked with funding and approving cross-school science initiatives.

That recommendation proposed an ambitious time-table for building a bioengineering program, including launching an undergraduate concentration in two years, a graduate program in one year, and an international search for a leader of the initiative starting this September.

The report also called for a minimum of 20 new faculty positions for the initiative as well as dedicated space, which the authors wrote would likely be in the first Allston science complex, now under construction and scheduled for completion in 2011.

Harvard science spokesman B. D. Colen said in a brief e-mail that the report was "an innovative, thoughtful proposal" but declined to discuss whether and how administrators would act on the recommendations.

"No decisions of any kind have been made at this time," he wrote, adding that final plans would likely wait for the appointment of a new dean for the School of Science and Engineering (SEAS).

The founding dean of SEAS, Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti, will leave the position in September, and a successor has yet to be announced.

Both Flier and Provost Steven E. Hyman, who chairs HUSEC and leads many of Harvard's efforts in the sciences, declined to comment through spokesmen.

The other reports addressed Neuroscience, Microbial Sciences, Aging, Imaging, Social Sciences, and organizational structures at the Medical School.

Although some of the white papers—including Neuroscience, Social Sciences, and organizational structures—stemmed directly from the strategic planning process’ main advisory groups, Medical School professor Lewis A. Lipsitz said that the rest were a “grass roots effort." Lipsitz, the main author of the report on Aging, said that faculty had come together to identify several research areas that they felt should be incorporated into the dean’s strategic plan.

Though the reports cover a wide spectrum of academic areas, a common theme throughout the proposals is uniting faculty from multiple disciplines to conduct better research. Phrases such as “university-wide interdisciplinary research efforts” and “cross-departmental and cross-institutional centers” pepper the executive summaries.

Additionally, several of the reports propose the creation of new centers and institutes to house the interdisciplinary research efforts.

The expansion plans come as the University is gearing up for a capital campaign in which the hard sciences are likely to take center stage.

Flier said in an interview earlier this year that he intends to present the results of the strategic planning process this fall to the Harvard Corporation—the University’s highest governing board—and potentially ask their help in funding specific projects.

In an interview early in the year, Hyman cited HUSEC, which was chartered with $50 million, as a likely funding source for projects stemming from Medical School strategic planning.

Medical School professor Jon C. Clardy, one of the authors of the Microbial Sciences report, said that he expected more reports to come out this month given the timeline set by Flier.

But for now, Clardy and his colleagues will have to wait for the steering committee to review the white papers this summer in order to make the decisions in the fall.

“What we’re proposing is actually fairly vague,” Clardy said. “There’s no agreement about what’s going to happen, but whatever happens will be closely integrated with HMS, FAS, and SEAS.”

—Staff Writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff Writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.