Kennedy School Scores Energy Grant

A Harvard Kennedy School policy research group received a $1.46 million grant last week from a charitable foundation devoted to, among other issues, environmental conservation.

The grant will fund a three-year program by the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group, aimed at finding methods to reduced greenhouse gases.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation chose to give Harvard funds from its $100 million Climate Change Initiative because of the University’s prolonged focus on the issue, according to Kelly S. Gallagher, director of the Energy Technology Innovation Policy research group.

“The fact that Harvard has a ten-year history of studying policy for energy innovation was the decisive factor in Harvard winning this grant,” she said.

The grant was one of five that the Foundation announced last Thursday, totalling $6.6 million. Each grant–including those awarded to MIT, Carnegie Mellon, the nonprofit Clean Air Task Force and the Bipartisan Policy Center—has a unique focus.

The Harvard grant aims to speed up the development of clean-energy technologies, according to the Foundation’s press release.

The Kennedy School group will study the efficacy of past and present U.S. policies intended to encourage clean-energy research, as well as the role government and business in Europe, China, Japan, and India play in the development of energy technology.

Andrew Bowman, director of the Climate Change Initiative at the Duke Foundation, expressed confidence in the potential of the grant.

“By focusing these grants on how energy technology innovation occurs and how it can be improved through better policy, the aim is to ensure that tomorrow’s clean energy technologies emerge on an accelerated timeline,” he said, according to the press release.