THE NEWS IN BRIEF: New Site To Increase Research Accessibility

Harvard will launch a new Web site today to publicize natural and social science research across the University.

The site, HarvardScience, will feature regularly updated profiles of scientists and research projects, breaking news, and a comprehensive directory of the University’s science researchers, according to Harvard science spokesman B. D. Colen.

“It really showcases the science that’s going on in ways that haven’t been featured before,” Colen said.

The revamped site, accessible at harvardscience.harvard.edu, debuts amid an effort by University administrators to build more cross-school and interdisciplinary links in science research.

Last spring, the University created its first cross-school department and a coordinating committee for hard science. University President Drew G. Faust told The Crimson last month that she plans to create a similar committee for the social sciences.

“At a time when we’re working to be interdisciplinary and reach across schools for science and research,” said Maureen A. Lyons, an assistant communications director at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute who helped develop the site, “it goes nicely hand in hand with what the University is trying to do with science in general.”

Alan J. Stone, Harvard’s vice president for government, community, and public affairs, said the site also reflected the University’s need for greater communication among its science programs as it launches the new School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and prepares to break ground on a science campus in Allston.

Stone said that Provost Steven E. Hyman had strongly backed the initiative.

“Whenever there’s a science initiative here, you know that the provost has some hand in it,” Stone said. “I think he was very enthused about this one.”

Hyman could not be reached for comment.

The portal replaces the 7-year-old Research Matters site, which will be taken down in the near future.

—CLIFFORD M. MARKS