Cross-disciplinary Contributions

It’s exceedingly rare for the Harvard Corporation to attract national attention—usually that role falls to the president—but Harvard’s highest governing board did just that recently by taking a major step forward in the development of interdisciplinary study at Harvard. The Corporation announced that it will write a check for $50 million for interdisciplinary science research and create the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC), a new University-wide standing committee that will oversee the initiative. Creating and funding a cross-disciplinary authority marks an innovative and commendable change in Harvard’s approach to science, which has traditionally been governed by insular and competing departments.

The decision to create HUSEC is in line with recommendations made by the University Planning Committee on Science and Engineering (UPCSE), which released its final report in December. While the committee expected a favorable reception from President Derek C. Bok and the deans, the considerable financial support for the early stages of the initiative came as a pleasant surprise, according to Lyman Professor of Biology Andrew A. Biewener, who is the chair of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a member of UPCSE.

The Harvard Corporation’s enthusiasm in following UPSCE’s recommendations and willingness to devote $50 million to their implementation—a virtually unheard of sum for a single initiative—is a welcome achievement for Harvard’s interdisciplinary science initiative. It demonstrates that such initiatives are at the top of the priority list of the upper echelons of Harvard’s­—a development that has grabbed the attention of top scientists worldwide and that will no doubt attract a fresh crop of the world’s greatest minds to Cambridge.

The most promising aspect of the Corporation’s initiative is the role it has given HUSEC. By creating a University-wide standing committee, rather than merely providing directionless money, the Corporation is introducing a permanent administrative structure to oversee the interdisciplinary initiative. Such structure will be critical to the initiative’s impact long-term success, providing stability and the authority to direct it coherently.

Most research at Harvard is funded through external grants, but faculty recruiting, new equipment and space, and lab renovations are all funded by Harvard based on requests by department chairs. Departments are less likely to expend resources recruiting scholars who work on the periphery of their respective fields—but these are precisely the scientists Harvard needs if it is to be a leader in cross-disciplinary research. Operating independent of the departments, HUSEC will be able to fill that gap: Its mission includes hiring faculty and providing labs for researchers whose work does not fit neatly into an existing department.

Hopefully, HUSEC will also soon create University-wide interdisciplinary departments. The Corporation has already expressed specific interest in a Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology that would focus on stem cells. New departments that span the gaps of their traditional counterparts will provide further administrative structure to the interdisciplinary initiative. They will be essential to advancing cross-disciplinary work, as they will be able to more effectively recruit specialized faculty, develop interdisciplinary programs, and request funding for equipment and lab space to conduct research in their respective fields.

As University-wide departments—which do not currently exist—these new units will further facilitate communication and collaboration among faculty from different schools. Provost Steven E. Hyman, who worked closely with the UPCSE and whose name is on the short list in the search for Harvard’s next president, has been a particularly strong proponent for creating University-wide departments, which would allow professors from different faculties and departments who are researching similar fields to collaborate more easily. Such departments will replace redundant, competing programs at different schools with a streamlined mechanism for cooperative study.

The creation of HUSEC and the allocation of $50 million has been greeted with unsurprising enthusiasm from the Faculty. The only reservation has been about the interaction between HUSEC and departments: The Faculty wants HUSEC to remain an advisory committee and allow existing departments to retain their autonomy. This concern was first voiced when UPCSE released its preliminary report in July, and the final report “emphasizes that [HUSEC] should not be directive at lower levels of academic structure,” according to Biewener. He explained that, although it has autonomy over its own funds, HUSEC’s role is meant to be advisory. It will develop and coordinate programs in which existing departments can choose to partake but will not micromanage or interfere with the regular operation of the departments. Further, HUSEC’s funding is not intended to cut into department budgets. If the money is being taken away from anyone, Biewener said, it is the deans.

By taking this bold step forward, the Harvard Corporation has brought Harvard into the national spotlight as a leader of interdisciplinary scientific research. Allston holds great promise for furthering Harvard’s role in this area, as it will provide space, new labs, and a home for the recently created Harvard Stem Cell Institute. But the Corporation is to be commended for taking the first step now by creating HUSEC, and for giving it adequate funding from the beginning. In the coming months and years, we hope that the Corporation and the rest of the University will continue to enthusiastically the interdisciplinary science initiative and provide it with the substantive support it needs to succeed.