On June 10, 176 Harvard undergraduates will return to campus to participate in the Program for Research in Science and Engineering, the Behavioral Laboratory in the Social Sciences, the Program for Research in Markets and Organizations, and the Summer Humanities and Arts Research Program, ten-week summer research programs coordinated by the Office for Undergraduate Research Initiatives. These students represent less than half of the applicants, according to Gregory A. Llacer, research office director and PRISE coordinator, and just a small percentage of Harvard undergraduates who decide to pursue research during college.

Harvard has bolstered its investment in research through opportunities like those listed above and the Harvard College Research Program, which receives approximately 150 term-time applications for funding per semester and approximately 400 for the summer, according to Student Employment Office director Meg Brooks Swift ’93. Swift said the program typically funds about 80 and 70 percent of those requests, respectively.

Now, as Harvard sees some of its key research grants reduced by the federal sequester, which set funding cuts into motion on March 1 to reduce the federal budget deficit, University programs like the HCRP may experience greater demand as student interest in research continues to grow.

Nevertheless, students still see research as one of Harvard’s primary assets, and faculty and staff are confident the University will be able to match that interest.

“I think as long as students come in wanting that research experience, the pressure is going to remain on the institution to find ways, both from a faculty support as well as a funding perspective, [to support undergraduate research],” said Brooks Swift.

HARVARD’S “SELLING POINT”

Chemical and Physical Biology concentrator Richard Y. Ebright ’14 came to Harvard with some high school research experience, but his work through PRISE on a cancer drug discovery after freshman year and two more years of follow-up work in the same Harvard laboratory enhanced his desire to become a professional researcher.

Brooks Swift described access to top-quality research as Harvard’s “big selling point” for high school seniors like Ebright. And faculty and staff across disciplines are consistently striving to create—and publicize—new opportunities.

One of the major players behind this effort is Ann B. Georgi, an undergraduate research adviser for life sciences. Improvements under her tenure have included the introduction of the undergraduate research fair in 2010, which attracted about 250 mostly first-year students last fall, and the creation of an undergraduate research handbook, made available online and in print this year.

“I’ve seen more freshmen getting started in labs and finding the right lab in the beginning and just being happy there for four years, and that’s a huge advantage for a student because they become a fully integrated member of the lab,” Georgi said.

Assistant professor of government Ryan D. Enos, who will serve as a faculty sponsor for BLISS this summer, said that increasing data analysis and infrastructure demands in the social sciences have opened up new investigative possibilities for students outside of the natural sciences as well.

“As social science becomes bigger and bigger in terms of what we can do, we need more and more manpower. We can’t just do with graduate students and professors,” Enos said.

Two new courses in the government department and the Undergraduate Research Scholars program at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, a Harvard-affiliated research institution established in 2005, offer students the possibility to learn about political science research.

Even the humanities, which traditionally receive limited support for research, have developed new opportunities like the SHARP summer research program, which engages ten students with interdisciplinary projects that range from philosophy to digital mapping.

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