NSF Grants Fall 10%

The National Science Foundation (NSF) probably will cut its individual research grants to Harvard by about ten percent.

NSF last year gave the University 25 percent less than Harvard had expected, Richard G. Leahy, assistant dean of the Faculty for resources and planning, said yesterday.

"NSF's appropriation has not come through Congress yet, so things may change a little, but in any case things are very serious for us," Leahy said.

The Faculty is now in a slightly better position to handle the reduction because, unlike last year, NSF announced the cut before the Faculty had apportioned the money to the different departments.

"It's expected that the Committee on Research and Policy will handle the problem when it meets in a few weeks," Leahy said. "The Departments will be able to support the stipends they're committed to, but probably not be able to grant many new ones," he added.

Spokesmen for the Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry Departments all report that the cut will definitely hurt their research projects.

Ronald E. Vanelli 41, director of the chemical laboratories, said the current reduction would injure the Chemistry Department "even more than last year." He added, "We will try to spread the cut out among all the research, and try to do it equitably."

To illustrate the difficulty of he scientists position, he stated that one-and-a-half-years ago researchers were getting 15 percent more money, disregarding inflation.

Vanelli said, however, that the fund cut would not influence the support or hiring of junior Faculty members. "Whether a man is kept depends on his intellectual ability, his capacity to produce research and to teach-his ability to raise money should never be taken into the picture," he added.

Robert P. Levine, chairman of the Biology department, said that, although fellowships have not been affected, "overall research will have to be cut down." He added that the cut will impair the department's ability to purchase the proper amount of facilities and supplies.