September 4, 2008

$400-Million Pledge for Biomedical-Research Institute at Harvard and MIT

Eli and Edythe L. Broad will announce this morning that they are pledging $400-million to endow the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, a biomedical-research center in Cambridge, Mass., that is jointly run by Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

The Broads, who have given more than $1.7-billion in their lifetimes, provided $100-million to start the institute, in 2003. Its goal is to bring researchers together from a wide range of disciplines to fight disease and focus on other topics.

Mr. Broad, who made his fortune in the home-building industry, said in an interview today that he and his wife were so impressed with the work that was completed that first year that they decided in 2005 to give an additional $100-million to the institute.

The donation to be announced today brings the total the couple has given to the institute to $600-million. That makes the Broad commitment one of the most-generous philanthropic gestures in higher-education history, according to a ranking by The Chronicle. —Maria Di Mento

September 3, 2008

NIH Tries to Buy Eureka Moments With New Round of Grants

Few, if any, scientific discoveries prompt a slap to the forehead and a shout of “Eureka,” as Archimedes is said to have done.

But that hasn’t stopped the National Institutes of Health from chasing after truly novel work that could push research in new directions. Today, the agency announced it was giving out $42.2-million to 38 “exceptionally innovative research projects that could have an extraordinarily significant impact on many areas of science.” Each will get $200,000 in direct costs for up to four years.

The awards are the first to be made under a new initiative with the acronym “Eureka,” for “Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration.” For example, Iswar K. Hariharan, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of California at Berkeley, won a grant to study new ways to promote tissue to regrow.

The Eureka awards are one way the NIH has been trying to respond to criticism that its ultracompetitive grant-making process favors established researchers and relatively safe projects that are sure to deliver results.

Last year the agency started granting new innovator awards to support researchers early in their careers. The Pioneer award program, by contrast, provides $500,000 per year for five years to researchers with a track record of opening new areas in research. —Richard Monastersky

British Publisher Will Release Controversial Novel About Muhammad's Bride

A novel canceled by Random House Inc. in May, after warnings from a University of Texas at Austin historian, has found a new publisher in Britain.

London-based Gibson Square Books announced today that it had agreed to publish The Jewel of Medina, which tells of A’isha, the child bride of the Prophet Muhammad.

Random House terminated its contract with the book’s author, Sherry Jones, after Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of history at Texas, warned that the book could spark violent protests like those that followed the 2005 publication of cartoons in a Danish newspaper depicting the Muslim prophet with a bomb in his turban.

Gibson Books, however, seems to relish the controversy and describes the book as “a meticulously researched love story of the Prophet Mohammed.”

“The Jewel of Medina is a perfect fit with Gibson Square’s publishing list of distinguished best sellers that contribute important, well-researched, but controversial points of view and have suffered rejection by other publishers as a result,” the company said in a written statement.

In an e-mail message, Ms. Jones said that the book also would be published in Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Russia, and Spain. A U.S. publisher is expected to be announced next week. —Eric Kelderman

September 2, 2008

Conflict-of-Interest Policies Are Not a Tough Pill to Swallow, Medical Journal Finds

Academic medical centers are finding it easier than expected to pull the plug on marketing practices that seek to sway doctors’ prescribing practices, according to a study published this afternoon by The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Fears that faculty members would flee and industry-research financing would dry up if free lunches and gifts were banned have not been realized, the study found. A report of the study’s findings was written by David J. Rothman and Susan Chimonas of Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Stanford University became the latest institution last month to announce that it was imposing strict limits on industry support for continuing medical education.

In the last two years, at least 25 medical centers have adopted stringent policies aimed at preventing conflicts of interest, the report notes. Among the universities they represent are the entire University of California system, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Pittsburgh. In addition to banning free handouts, the policies have restricted access for drug-company representatives seeking to visit academic physicians.

Institutions with strong policies usually have a dean who takes the lead, supported by knowledgeable administrators such as a dean of pharmacy, the study concludes. —Katherine Mangan

Dispute Widens Between Southern Illinois U.-Carbondale and Ulysses S. Grant Association

A dispute between Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and the Ulysses S. Grant Association has deepened with the filing of a lawsuit over the association’s collection of papers of the U.S. president and Civil War general — which are held at the university’s library — and a welter of contending accounts of the split in the news media.

According to reports in The Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper at Carbondale, the association has sued the university to seek the release of the papers. The association voted to remove both itself and its papers from Carbondale in May.

The move was precipitated by a dispute over sexual-harassment allegations made by co-workers against John Y. Simon, the former executive director of the association and editor of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, a publishing project. Mr. Simon spent 44 years at the university in those roles and as as a professor of history. He had completed 30 of the 31 volumes of the Grant papers when was fired by the university in January. He died in Carbondale in July.

Today’s issue of The Daily Egyptian also published an article in which Mr. Simon’s widow, Harriet Simon, said that her husband had never seen a full report of the investigation against him. Officials at the university contradicted that account.

The Daily Egyptian also reported that the vacuum of leadership at the association after Mr. Simon’s termination had led to allegations — made in the lawsuit — that Mr. Simon’s signature had been forged on some payment documents. The allegation was first made in correspondence between the association’s lawyers and the university that was obtained by the newspaper. —Richard Byrne

Nelson Mandela Foundation Gains Stake in Oxford U. Press's South African Arm

Cape Town — Nelson Mandela, the civil-rights leader and former South African president, signed an agreement today with Oxford University Press in South Africa that will expand the work of a foundation that provides university scholarships to African students.

The agreement will give the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, whose purpose is to educate young African leaders, a 25.1-percent stake in the South African arm of the scholarly publisher.

The Mandela Rhodes Foundation’s chairman, Jakes Gerwel, said he hoped the agreement would enable the foundation to support 100 scholarships per year by 2012.

The deal is also intended to fulfill the publisher’s obligation to help expand the participation of black South Africans in the nation’s economy, under a policy known as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment, which has seen many companies that operate in South Africa sell off shares to black investors. —Megan Lindow

August 26, 2008

White House Releases List, but Not Citations, of Winners of National Medals

Washington — President Bush announced on Monday the recipients of the 2007 National Medal of Science and the 2007 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the country’s highest honors for scientific achievement. Nine academics were among the winners.

But the list of laureates did not come with a corresponding list of citations, and officials of the National Science Foundation, which administers the awards, told The Chronicle that it might take the White House “several more weeks” to release them.

The same NSF officers said the winners of the 2008 medals would be selected this year. In 2007 the White House named the winners of the 2005 and 2006 National Medals.

The academics who will receive a National Medal of Science for their scientific achievements, during a ceremony at the White House on September 29, are:

Fay Ajzenberg-Selove, a professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mostafa A. El-Sayed, a professor of chemistry and director of the Laser Dynamics Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Leonard Kleinrock, a distinguished professor of computer science at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Robert J. Lefkowitz, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Duke University Medical Center.

Bert O’Malley, the chair of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine.

Charles P. Slichter, a research professor of physics and emeritus professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Center for Advanced Study.

Andrew J. Viterbi, a benefactor of and engineering chair at the University of Southern California.

Two professors will received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for their achievements:

Adam Heller, a research professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carlton Grant Willson, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Stay tuned for more information. —Maria José Viñas

August 25, 2008

Yet Another Political-Science Conference Site Comes Under Scrutiny

As the American Political Science Association prepares to meet in Boston this week, a small network of scholars — including a pair of high-profile social conservatives — is circulating a petition asking the association to think carefully about its plans to meet in Toronto next year.

At issue are Canada’s federal and provincial human-rights commissions, which have recently been accused of trampling on free speech. In a decision last May, the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission ordered a right-wing Christian organization to “cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.” And Maclean’s, the Canadian newsweekly, was brought before a British Columbia tribunal in June for publishing an allegedly anti-Muslim article; the tribunal has not yet issued a ruling.

The political-science petition, whose initial signers include Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University, and Harvey C. Mansfield, a professor of government at Harvard University, warns that scholars visiting Toronto might face legal jeopardy if they made controversial statements. Scholars should be able to speak about “public policy concerning homosexuality or the character of and proper response to terrorist elements acting in the name of Islam, without fear of legal repercussions of any kind,” the petition reads.

The campaign has the flavor of a boycott. According to a report in the National Post, the petition’s authors plan to distribute buttons at this week’s conference that say “Toronto 2009? Non!”

But the petition itself makes a milder demand. It asks the association to solicit legal advice and to consult with the Canadian government to ensure that scholars’ civil liberties will be protected. “Our petition is simply asking for clarification,” said one of its authors, James R. Stoner, a professor of political science at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, in an interview with The Chronicle today. “We’re asking the APSA to acknowledge that there’s some issue concerning this, and that we can presume that the customary standards of academic freedom will be assured.”

Mr. Stoner speculated that the association’s governing council might refer the matter to an existing committee that has been asked to help scholars cope with homeland-security agencies when they cross the U.S.-Canadian border for next year’s meeting.

The new petition comes just weeks after the association affirmed its plan to meet in New Orleans in 2012. Some activists have objected to that site because of Louisiana’s anti-gay-marriage law, which is more restrictive than similar laws elsewhere. Daniel R. Pinello, a professor of government at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, is continuing to promote a boycott of the 2012 meeting. (Mr. Pinello crossed swords with Mr. Stoner, among others, in a 2003 e-mail debate on politics in the classroom that seems to foreshadow both the Toronto and New Orleans disputes.) —David Glenn

Federal Spending on Academic Research Continued Downward Trend in 2007

Washington — Total spending on academic scientific research grew slightly in 2007 even as the the subtotal financed by the federal government fell, after inflation was factored in, according to a new report. Colleges and other providers made up the difference from their own pockets — but they weren’t happy about it.

The federal government is the largest source of funds for academic research, and the 2007 fiscal year represented the second straight year of decline after inflation, according to the report, which was issued by the National Science Foundation. The federal total was $30.44-billion, a net drop of 1.6 percent compared with 2006. Such a two-year decline had never before occurred since the NSF began tracking those figures, in 1972.

But overall spending on academic research totaled $49.43-billion in 2007, an increase of 0.8 percent after inflation. Academic institutions increased their own spending by nearly 7 percent, for a total of $9.70-billion.

Contributions from industry also surged, by 11 percent, to $2.67-billion. Corporate spending has now more than made up for dips in three consecutive years, from 2001 to 2004.

The numbers add up to a continuation of a trend that universities have decried: The burden of paying for research is slowly shifting away from the federal government and toward them and other sources. Some observers also worry that the growth in industry money will distort the agendas of academic researchers and fuel restrictions on scholarly publishing, although that money remains a small share of the total.

It’s too soon to know yet whether the next president will ride to the rescue. Sen. Barack Obama has proposed doubling federal spending on basic research; Sen. John McCain also wants to expand research in energy and climate change but has emphasized tax credits to pay for it. But after a new president is inaugurated, in January, he could take several months before unveiling detailed spending proposals for the 2009 fiscal year and beyond. —Jeffrey Brainard

August 23, 2008

California Senate Approves Protections for Animal Researchers

Berkeley, Calif. — The California Senate unanimously approved a bill on Friday that seeks to limit the activities of animal-rights protesters after a series of attacks on the homes of researchers at the University of California.

The bill would make it a misdemeanor in some cases to publish personal information about academic researchers or their immediate families. It also takes aim at Web sites and fliers produced by animal-rights protesters that publish the photographs, home addresses, and phone numbers of researchers along with alleged details of their research.

The bill now heads to the Assembly, where support is expected. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has not taken a position on the legislation, and he has promised not to sign any bill before the state’s months-long budget stalemate is resolved. —Josh Keller