Kistiakowsky Committee Decries Restrictions on Scientific Research

A committee of the National Academy of Sciences warned this week against "a recent trend toward restriction of scientific freedom" in the administration of government grants.

The committee, chaired by George B. Kistiakowsky, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry, said in a report released Thursday that federal support of basic research should not sacrifice the traditional freedom of scientific inquiry to the accountability of funds.

Harvey Brooks, Dean of Engineering and Applied Physics, said yesterday that he had not noticed a trend toward such restrictions at Harvard. Existing regulations are "mostly in the nature of stricter accounting restrictions and restrictions on changes in direction of research projects," he said.

Guard University Independence

The report said that "the independence of the universities" must not be violated. "The responsibility of the government for the expenditure of funds and the freedom of the scientist to conduct his own research, reach his conclusions in his own way, and make them public" must also never be restricted in the awarding of grants, it added.

To maximize both the freedom of the scientist and proper use of funds, a project proposal should include both short-term and broader long range objectives. However, only "a deviation from the broad objectives should call for special approval from the federal agency," the report warned.

The committee described as "necessary for the healthy growth of American science" the expansion of institutional or general research grants and the awarding of small research grants to junior scientists. It also requested that federal agencies use advisory panels of scientists to evaluate research proposals and allot grants on the basis of scientific merit.

Last spring, Harvard and the AEC clashed over the administration of a $5 million a year grant for the operation of the Cambridge Electron Accelerator. The University contested the AEC's right to veto the employment application of any alien and to control all information released by the CEA to Soviet bloc scientists.