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Harvard has established robust policies around corporate engagement and processes for reviewing potential engagements to ensure that they support academic freedom and core institutional values, avoid conflicts of interest, and align with the needs and priorities of the University and its constituents. In 2023, the Provost’s Office established two  ad hoc  committees to undertake a review of the University’s policies, process, and support: the  Corporate Relations Research Policy Committee  and the  Corporate Relations Researcher Engagement Committee . These committees are coordinated and supported through the Office of the Vice Provost for Research (OVPR).

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Latest News

Videos | 6.7.2024

A Ray of Light amid Middle East Devastation

Harvard’s Lisa Randall on Israeli and Palestinian Scientists Working Together

by Olivia Farrar

Faculty & Research | 6.5.2024

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by Jack R. Trapanick

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The DNA of World Literature

A new Norton Anthology, edited by Harvard’s Martin Puchner, reimagines the global literary tradition. 

by Nina Pasquini

Videos | 5.29.2024

Harvard Professor Scott Kominers on NFTs and Brands

The coming digital revolution and how NFTs will transform ownership, brands, and how we create

University News | 5.28.2024

When Harvard Should—and Shouldn’t—Speak

A final report from the faculty working group on institutional neutrality

by Lydialyle Gibson

Commencement | 5.24.2024

Equality and Justice

A Radcliffe Day panel discusses pluralism and progress. 

Using the Law for Good

2024 Radcliffe Medalist Sonia Sotomayor on civic engagement and optimism

by Max J. Krupnick

Commencement | 5.23.2024

Ending a tumultuous year, Harvard tradition is served in the 373rd Commencement—with plenty of thunder from the stage.

by John S. Rosenberg , Max J. Krupnick

Photographs from Commencement Week 2024

A gallery of photographs from the Commencement celebration for the class of 2024

University News | 5.23.2024

Protesters Walk Out of Harvard Commencement

Pro-Palestine activists hold “The People’s Commencement”

Harvard Confers Six Honorary Degrees

Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, conductor Gustavo Dudamel, President emeritus Larry Bacow among those recognized

by John S. Rosenberg

Commencement | 5.22.2024

“Be Unlikely Inseparables”

An unconventional Class Day to conclude a tumultuous senior year 

Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine works well outside of clinical trials, study finds

Pfizer and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine is proving as effective in real-world settings as it did in clinical testing, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) co-authored by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers.

The study looked at data on more than 500,000 people who received the vaccine in Israel between December 20, 2020, and February 1, 2021 and compared it with a similarly sized group of people who were not vaccinated. The vaccine was 94% effective against symptomatic illness a week after the second dose, according to the findings. It was also 92% effective against severe disease. The data were collected through Clalit Health Services, a research arm of Israel’s largest health care provider.

“In all studies of vaccine effectiveness, a major challenge is to ensure that those we are comparing to identify the vaccine’s effect are similar in the other characteristics that may predict whether they get infected or ill,” said Marc Lipsitch , professor of epidemiology, director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics , and a co-author of the NEJM paper, in a February 24, 2021, New York Times article. “Clalit’s extraordinary database made it possible to design a study that addressed these challenges.”

In a February 25, 2021, Time article, Lipsitch said the study findings are “close to the best possible news.” Yet, he said, many important questions remain, including how long immunity from the vaccine lasts.

Miguel Hernán , Kolokotrones Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, was also a co-author of the NEJM paper.

Read the New York Times article: The Pfizer vaccine’s initial success holds up in wider use, a study finds

Read the Time article: COVID-19 Vaccines Work. Here’s the Real-World Proof

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‘The only way through is with’

Why row from Boston to London? Because it’s there.

Next up for House renewal: Eliot

“Revitalizing Democracy” was one of six symposia included in the inauguration celebration. It featured moderator Guy-Uriel Charles (from left), Archon Fung, Jill Lepore, Daniel Ziblatt, Yanilda Gonzalez, and Danielle Allen.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Taking aim at global solutions

Christina Pazzanese, Samantha Laine Perfas, and Liz Mineo

Harvard Staff Writers

Panels examine challenges ahead: riven democracies, biomedical advances, raging inequity, climate change, harnessing AI, role of academy

As democracies around the world grow increasingly divided with the rise of various anti-democratic forces and nationalist-populist movements, a group of Harvard scholars gathered Friday morning to assess the state of democracy in the U.S. and propose ways to revitalize it to ensure it best serves 21st-century America.

The event, titled “Revitalizing Democracy,” was one of six academic symposia that took place Friday across the University as part of President Claudine Gay’s inaugural celebration. Gay, a political scientist, has called “faltering” democracies one of the most pressing challenges the world faces. She said that seeking ways Harvard can join with the global community to find solutions is a priority for the University.

During a discussion at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School led by moderator Guy-Uriel Charles, Charles Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, faculty panelists identified some of the difficulties American democracy faces today.

Among the issues that panelists cited are an outdated reliance on institutions like the Electoral College, the U.S. Senate, and the filibuster that permit a minority to thwart the will of the majority, and foreign actors and nation-states targeting the American electorate with threats and false information designed to widen political and cultural divisions and weaken consensus on democratic principles.

Many of the problems have been gradually emerging over time amid changes in population through immigration, shifts to a global economy, and the rise of digital technology.

Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor, and director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, said passage of immigration laws in the 1960s, the emergence of social media and structural reforms to both political parties in the 1950s have resulted in “unintended consequences” that affect our democracy today.

Some of the panelists noted that the country has only been a true multicultural democracy since the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, while the Constitution, written by and for a white minority eligible to vote, has remained largely untouched since the Civil Rights era.

The “outsized” and very different experience that communities of color often have with policing compared to white communities fuels misperceptions about the state and crime and hardens fear-driven partisanship, said Yanilda González, assistant professor of public policy at the Kennedy School.

The panel offered ideas for how the Harvard community, particularly faculty and students, can start to dismantle these barriers and strengthen democracy so that it more fairly and equitably serves the changing America populace.

Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government and director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at HKS, said research has shown that frequent face-to-face interactions between people with very different political views reduces polarization and will foster a “culture of democracy” in which disagreement is welcome and partisanship is not, so focusing more effort on bridging political gaps at the local or state level is critical.

Jill Lepore, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and Harvard College Professor, suggested an amendment to the Constitution that would impose term limits on Supreme Court justices at some future, mutually agreed upon date, could be an effective way to eliminate lifetime appointments, which partisans on both sides agree in principle runs counter to democratic practice, and to demonstrate that changes to the Constitution are necessary and possible.

Academic institutions, like Harvard, ought to begin working now to identify the models that can best move U.S. political institutions forward so that they truly support our multicultural democracy, said Daniel Ziblatt, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University and director of the Center for European Studies.

“The ideas are already there,” Ziblatt said. They just require time and attention to refine them so they’re ready to be implemented when the time comes, much like was done following World War II to establish institutions like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.

“If we just sort of hold off until the moment is ‘realistic,’ then we won’t be ready when the moment comes.”

“Innovating for Impact: Science for the Mind and Body in the 21st Century”

Another panel, moderated by Amy Wagers, the Forst Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and the co-chair of the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, discussed Harvard’s biomedical research and the field’s untapped potential in improving health outcomes for billions around the world.

“I really wanted to highlight the many facets of innovation that are needed to realize the full potential of biological discoveries, spanning from the first arc of an idea to the experiments in their early days to the discoveries — and ultimately their application — in the real world,” Wagers said.

And the first step, all agreed, was to be unafraid to take leaps.

“We need to take big risks to solve hard problems,” said Kara McKinley, one of the panelists and an assistant professor at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. McKinley leads a lab that seeks to advance regenerative medicine by studying a repair mechanism in the uterus that may offer insights into how we can harness natural processes to heal wounds. “Because in the end, this is really the goal, to create cures and to do science that is in service to humankind,” she said.

Moderator Amy Wagers (at podium) introduces panelists Kara McKinley (from left), Nadine Gaab, Irene Faravelli, Arlene Sharpe, and Amitabh Chandra at “Innovating for Impact: Science for the Mind and Body in the 21st Century.”

Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

During the event, panelists engaged with the attendees, asking questions and encouraging them to discuss ideas with the people seated next to them.

Arlene Sharpe is the Kolokotrones University Professor and chair of the Department of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. Her lab focuses on whether we can train our own immune cells to better fight infection and cancer.

Sharpe played a video of T cells delivering “the kiss of death” to cancer cells. She turned to the audience and said, “I could watch this all day,” eliciting chuckles around the room.

“One of the most exciting things about being at Harvard is the collaboration,” said Sharpe, who is also a member of the Broad Institute and the leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. “One of the things that kept me here all these years is the ability to work with people. Wherever my science takes me, there are wonderful collaborations that develop that enable us to work together.”

Other panelists included Nadine Gaab, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education who specializes in developmental cognitive neuroscience as it relates to learning disabilities; Irene Faravelli, a neurologist and postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology; and Amitabh Chandra, an economist and the Henry and Allison McCance Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

During the Q&A portion of the event, all panelists agreed that more investment in the broader science community is needed if we want to address some of the world’s most pressing health issues — and not just a greater commitment of dollars, but human investment.

“The impediment to missing innovations is no longer capital,” said Chandra, who is also the Ethel Zimmerman Wiener Professor of Public Policy and Director of Health Policy Research at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. “[B]ut the people who are capable of discovering them are not entering the life sciences.” Some of them, he noted, never make it to an institution of higher education because they lack the necessary economic and educational opportunities.

Harvard, according to Chandra, produces nearly 4 percent of the world’s basic science. As a significant producer of research, the University has a role to play in equipping current and future generations of scientists to further advance the boundaries of knowledge, especially scientists from historically underrepresented backgrounds.

“There is really an urgent need to increase the diversity of people who do science to make science look like the people that our science seeks to serve,” said McKinley.

During the “Challenging Inequality in the US” panel discussion, Peter Blair shared his research on expanding labor market mobility for Americans who don’t have bachelor’s degrees.

Niles Singer/Harvard Staff Photographer

“Challenging Inequality in the US: New Ideas and Approaches”

Panelists who took part in an academic symposium on inequality in the U.S. urged the audience to fight inequality from their own trenches, in schools, neighborhoods, and their local associations.

Scholars can do research, compile and analyze data, and come up with theories about inequality. But, they noted, their work needs to be accompanied by the efforts of the community.

“Ideas matter for advancing real-world change,” said Sara Bleich , professor of public health policy at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was the event’s moderator. “But this work requires collaboration.”

The key, said Crystal Yang , Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is to look outside research institutions and go into the real world, and commit to work following truth and science.

Panelists shared with the audience how they became interested in studying inequality and, in some cases, how their personal life stories influenced their paths. They also talked about the policies and the practices they would like to see to advance their research.

Peter Blair , assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, studies labor market discrimination, and the ways in which education can help workers who lack degrees achieve upper mobility. Blair spoke about his work with other researchers and policymakers to expand labor market mobility for the 70 million Americans who don’t have bachelor’s degrees.

“Research matters,” said Blair. “The way that we see people matters. The lens of thinking about who’s not in the room matters also. One of the phenomenal things about being at Harvard and specifically at the Ed School is that we value the basic research policy and its impact on practice.”

Robert Sampson , the Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor, who studies crime, criminal justice, and urban inequality, spoke about the role of universities in research to promote social changes by including the voices of community members and understanding their lived experiences.

Imani Perry , who studies the history of Black thought, art, and imagination created in resistance to slavery and oppression, made a special plea to the audience.

“Identify an issue of injustice or inequality … [and devote the next two years] to spending some time on a regular basis on this issue,” said Perry, Henry A. Morss Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies, and Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

“Even if it’s just those of us who are in this room, that would have a remarkably transformative effect. What we learn when we do scholarly research is that it’s the slow work that is the most transformative work. The same is true for social movement.”

“Confronting the Impact of Climate Change: Building Resilience and New Solutions” featured panelist Steven Wofsy (from left), Karen Thornber, Laura Schifter, Tamarra James-Todd, and Stephen Ansolabehere. Panelist Claire Leibowicz shared her insights on “Harnessing Generative Artificial Intelligence for Learning, Teaching, and Working.”

Photos by Jon Chase and Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographers

There were three other panels marking the inauguration of Gay. Stephen Ansolabehere, Tamarra James-Todd, Laura Schifter, Karen Thornber, and Steven Wofsy discussed how leaders and communities can confront the far-reaching effects of climate change; Amanda Claybaugh, Isaac Kohane, Karim Lakhani, and Claire Leibowicz examined the potential for generative AI to transform labor and education; and Durba Mitra, Megan Panzano, Matthew Potts, and Louis Menand traded ideas about the role of academia in the face of new tech and global challenges.

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Robin Kelsey (from left), Matthew Potts, and Durba Mitra listen to an audience member’s question at the discussion, “Looking Ahead: The Future of the Academy.”

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More Climate Research, Teaching to Make Greater Impact

James Stock, Harvard's new vice provost for climate and sustainability, identifies two areas where the University can make an immediate difference.

By Alvin Powell, The Harvard Gazette

International climate-change experts have issued increasingly dire warnings about the need for deep emissions cuts in the years to come. The nations of the world will consider their individual commitments and plan the path ahead when they gather for the latest global climate summit in November in Scotland. Harvard, meanwhile, has signaled its intent to further boost its diverse and long-running climate-change efforts, creating a new position of vice provost for climate and sustainability and naming energy and environmental policy expert James Stock to the post in September. Stock, the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, spoke to the Gazette about the challenge ahead, for both the globe and Harvard, and his vision for how his new office can help.

Q&A with James Stock

GAZETTE: There’s work on climate change going on across Harvard’s Schools. How do you see your role as vice provost intersecting with that work?

STOCK: In his letter on climate-change engagement at Harvard last month, President Larry Bacow wrote that “Harvard must stand among world leaders in addressing this challenge.” It’s my job to make this happen.

Fortunately, we are starting from a position of strength. We have many excellent individual faculty members and students working on various aspects of climate change and sustainability across the University. Also, the Harvard University Center for the Environment has done a terrific job creating a community of scholars across Harvard who are deeply engaged in climate and environment research. My task is to build on this strength at the University level to support more research, more teaching and education, and an enhanced level of external impact commensurate with Harvard’s stature.

At the moment, research and education in the climate area mainly occurs within the Schools. I see my role as both supporting existing research programs and promoting research collaborations across School boundaries. Climate change cuts across School boundaries, and tackling the challenge of climate change is a quintessential example of how we can draw on all of Harvard’s strengths.

GAZETTE: Is there a particular place at the University where the potential for deepest impact lies right now?

STOCK: In the short run, we have at least two areas of opportunity. One is in research. We can support those who are actively engaged in research in this area. We can also make it easier for researchers who haven’t worked on climate issues but would like to. For example, I anticipate that this spring we will start a new grants program for Harvard faculty and graduate students, as a larger successor to the Climate Change Solutions Fund . I’d like to see this program used in part to support early work by scholars interested in bringing their expertise and perspectives to climate and sustainability research. I’d like to promote a “big tent” approach to research in this area. This is a vast field that needs first-rate minds focusing on it across many disciplines.

A second area is on-campus education. Currently, demand for climate-related courses far outstrips supply. Fully addressing that problem requires having more faculty teaching in the area. But we can make progress in the short run by taking advantage creatively of existing courses. For example, the Center for the Environment has been developing resources to support faculty who want to create a climate module in their courses. That is a terrific opportunity to help faculty who want to connect existing and new courses to climate and environmental challenges. There are also things we can and will do, with the Center for the Environment’s help, to support and educate Ph.D. students working in the climate area broadly. And we — faculty and students together — also have an opportunity to think ahead to what a more robust set of curricular options could look like.

“Climate change cuts across School boundaries, and tackling the challenge of climate change is a quintessential example of how we can draw on all of Harvard’s strengths.”

GAZETTE: Does your appointment — as an expert on energy and environment policy — indicate a belief that, while advancing climate science, technology, and other aspects of the problem are clearly still important, this has become largely a policy problem, specifically an energy policy problem?

STOCK: The scope of needed work on climate spans many time scales and many intellectual areas. It’s true that my own work focuses on U.S. energy policy and how we can effectively decarbonize in the near term. But there are a vast number of other aspects of climate change that Harvard can and does contribute to. We already have great engineering work on batteries, carbon removal, and more, but the world needs much more on the technology front. And, what are the best ways to make urban environments more resilient to storms, floods, and rising sea levels? What are the public health threats that future climate change will pose, and how can they be addressed? How can the private sector meaningfully work toward a sustainable future? What can we do to make sure that the transition to clean energy benefits the disadvantaged communities that have disproportionately suffered from fossil-fuel pollution? Harvard faculty are doing good work in many of these areas, but there is much more to be done.

Going back to your question about energy policy, recently I’ve been thinking about the transition to light-duty electric vehicles and about the transition to low-carbon aviation fuels. Those are, in the first instance, policy questions, but they are intimately linked with technology questions. If you just focus on sustainable aviation fuels, there are many possible, theoretical paths to decarbonizing the aviation sector, but really none of those are available at a commercial scale right now. We don’t really know which of those are going to be cost-effective. So the question of decarbonizing aviation is really challenging in part because we don’t know what the technology is. What we need to do now is make sure that these technologies develop. That problem combines policy, technology, finance, land use, and business.

GAZETTE: Can the potential replacements for current aviation fuels be used in current engines or are we also looking at a need to transition to new types of engines?

STOCK: At the moment, the most plausible path runs through so-called sustainable aviation fuels, which can be used directly in today’s jet engines. Those fuels also can be used with today’s fueling infrastructure. These fuels come from biofuel feedstocks, some of which have the potential to have very low life-cycle carbon footprints. But engineers are thinking outside the box, too. For example, there are development prototype airplanes that are battery powered for short-haul purposes, like flying from Boston to the Cape. Then there are other ideas like using hydrogen as a fuel. For example, Airbus has been doing some concept work on using hydrogen. That’s a long way off but it underscores that aviation isn’t just a policy problem, it’s also a technology and business problem.

“Changes on the Harvard campus are important — we must lead by example — but Harvard’s leadership must extend much further, through research, teaching, and engagement, nationally and globally.”

GAZETTE: Clearly, a heavy reliance on renewables seems to be the way forward, but is it possible to go entirely to renewables? What is your view of this energy transition as we move ahead?

STOCK: I’m confident that we can fully decarbonize the power sector, although we can’t do it next week. If we can generate inexpensive green electricity, then use it to power vehicles and manufacturing processes and so forth, then that is a very plausible path towards decarbonization for big chunks of the economy. At the moment, the best bet for sharply reducing carbon emissions in the power sector is through building new renewables generating capacity — wind and solar — while postponing the retirement of our nuclear fleet. Squeezing the final 10 or 15 percent of fossil fuel emissions out of the power sector is an area where the technology isn’t quite there yet. There are some very exciting ideas that are being explored for that. Some of them have to do with long-term battery storage; some of them have to do with hydrogen; some of it could be load management. There is also a role for new zero-carbon capacity like nuclear or, maybe someday, fusion, if the economics, siting, and fuel challenges work out. So there’s a wide range of things that are under active investigation, and we’re going to have to cross that bridge in 10 or 15 years, perhaps sooner in some regions.

GAZETTE: Has solar gotten to the point where it is cheaper than coal or natural gas?

STOCK: Yes. In much of the United States, it is substantially cheaper to install new solar than just to keep an existing coal plant running. This is a remarkable and quite recent development. Now, one really can see a path toward deep decarbonization of the power sector in the U.S. and in other areas where there are renewable resources, wind or solar.

GAZETTE: Is that what makes you optimistic?

STOCK: The falling cost of wind and solar electricity definitely is one reason for great optimism in the United States for a big chunk of our emissions. Another reason for optimism is that it is also becoming cheaper to use that green electricity in much of the transportation sector. We are already at the point where some electric vehicles are price-competitive with their gasoline counterparts, if you include fuel and maintenance costs. As battery prices fall, the price of electric vehicles will fall further, and they will become increasingly attractive to the consumer — especially if we take the public policy actions needed to support charging infrastructure.

But the main reason I’m optimistic is the passion for addressing climate-change issues among youth nationally and globally. Here at Harvard, there is tremendous student enthusiasm for tackling climate change across the board, from undergraduates interested in green technologies, to professional students preparing for careers in which climate change and sustainability will play an important role. The youth movement has been critical in driving the current climate efforts by the Biden administration and in Congress. Whatever happens to those efforts in the short run, the youth political pressure to act on climate has been transformative.

GAZETTE: Given the magnitude of the change, can we do it in the timeframe that seems to be necessary?

STOCK: A common goal is to be net zero by 2050. I think that’s an achievable goal, but I must admit that in saying that I’m putting a lot of faith in the engineers — and in green-tech venture capitalists and the rest of the green-tech ecosystem, including research universities — to invent a lot of things that don’t yet exist. We also will need the policies to support those nascent technologies and drive, or in some cases enforce, the transition. In the big areas of energy use — the use of electricity in residential heating and cooling, light-duty transportation, even aviation, one can see a path toward net zero by 2050. There are some residual areas where we just don’t know, such as manufacturing processes like steel production. Agriculture is challenging because of methane emissions from animal husbandry. There are ideas about how to mitigate such sources, but they’re all very expensive. So there’s a lot of work to be done in some of these most difficult sectors. It’s really important to think about these things now, to focus on doing what we can now to set the stage for those steps later

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Unlock Your World

From laboratory study to archival research to investigations in the field, Harvard students engage in world-class research across all disciplines and make groundbreaking contributions to their fields.

With support from a variety of funding sources, students collaborate with renowned faculty researchers whose work has been featured in top journals and awarded prestigious grants. Whether you assist your professor or lead your own project, you'll receive guidance, support, and the benefit of their expertise.

Research Opportunities

Are there research opportunities for undergraduates.

Yes - available to students as early as their freshman year. You may find research projects through individual inquiries with departments and professors, through the  Harvard College Research Program  (HCRP), or through the  Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program  (MMUF). The  Faculty Aide Program , run by the Student Employment Office, links professors to undergraduates interested in becoming research assistants. Read more about HCRP and MMUF on the  Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships website , and find additional opportunities on the  Student Employment Office website . 

Expanding Our Campus

The state-of-the-art Science and Engineering Complex expands Harvard's campus with an additional 500,000 square feet of classrooms, active learning labs, maker space, and common areas.

Term-Time Research

During the academic year, you can conduct research for credit, as determined by the director of undergraduate study in each department.

Students can also receive funding from one of many sources. Additionally, many faculty members across academic departments hire students directly to serve as research assistants.

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Harvard college research program.

The  Harvard College Research Program  (HCRP) provides term-time and summer grants for students conducting independent research in collaboration with a faculty mentor.

Faculty Aide Program

The  Faculty Aide Program  (FAP) provides half of a student’s total wages when working for an approved faculty member as a research assistant.

Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program

The  Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program  (MMUF) provides a term-time stipend, as well as the option for summer research funds, to a group of approximately 20 juniors and seniors, selected in the spring of their sophomore years.

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Summer Research

Harvard offers many residential research programs for students staying on campus during the summer. In addition, funding is available to support independent research locally, domestically, and internationally.

Building Learning through Inquiry in the Social Sciences

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Age Reversal Breakthrough: Harvard/MIT Discovery Could Enable Whole-Body Rejuvenation

By Impact Journals LLC July 15, 2023

Scientists from Harvard Medical School, the University of Maine, and MIT have published a groundbreaking study revealing a chemical method to reprogram cells to a more youthful state. This technique offers a potential alternative to gene therapy for reversing aging. The implications of this research are vast, with potential applications in regenerative medicine, treatment of age-related diseases, and whole-body rejuvenation.

In a pioneering study, researchers from Harvard Medical School, University of Maine, and MIT have introduced a chemical method for reversing cellular aging. This revolutionary approach offers a potential alternative to gene therapy for age reversal. The findings could transform treatments for age-related diseases, enhance regenerative medicine, and potentially lead to whole-body rejuvenation.

Groundbreaking Discovery in Aging Reversal

In a monumental study, a team of researchers has revealed a novel approach to combating aging and age-related diseases. This work, undertaken by scientists at Harvard Medical School, introduces the first chemical method to rejuvenate cells, bringing them to a more youthful state. Prior to this, only powerful gene therapy could achieve this feat.

Mice in the Sinclair lab have been engineered to age rapidly to test the effectiveness of therapies to reverse the aging process. The mouse on the right has been aged to 150% that of its sibling on the left by disrupting its epigenome. Photo credit: D. Sinclair, Harvard Medical School. Credit: 2023 Yang et al.

On July 12, 2023, researchers from Harvard Medical School, the University of Maine, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published a fresh research paper in Aging . The paper, titled, “Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging,” extends upon a previously groundbreaking discovery. The researchers are Jae-Hyun Yang, Christopher A. Petty, Thomas Dixon-McDougall, Maria Vina Lopez, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Sun Maybury-Lewis, Xiao Tian, Nabilah Ibrahim, Zhili Chen, Patrick T. Griffin, Matthew Arnold, Jien Li, Oswaldo A. Martinez, Alexander Behn, Ryan Rogers-Hammond, Suzanne Angeli, Vadim N. Gladyshev, and David A. Sinclair.

Exploring the Methodology

This discovery builds on the finding that the expression of specific genes, known as Yamanaka factors, can transform adult cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This breakthrough, which earned a Nobel Prize, prompted scientists to question if cellular aging could be reversed without pushing cells to become too young and potentially cancerous.

Rejuvenation and age reversal of senescent human skin cells by chemical means. Cells in the right two panels have restored compartmentalization of the red fluorescent protein in the nucleus, a marker of youth that was used to find the cocktails, before the scientists confirmed they were younger, based on how genes were expressed. Image credit: J. -H. Yang, Harvard Medical School. Credit: 2023 Yang et al.

In this recent study, the scientists probed for molecules that could, in tandem, revert cellular aging and refresh human cells. They designed advanced cell-based assays to differentiate between young and old, as well as senescent cells. The team employed transcription-based aging clocks and a real-time nucleocytoplasmic protein compartmentalization (NCC) assay. In a significant development, they identified six chemical combinations that could return NCC and genome-wide transcript profiles to youthful states, reversing transcriptomic age in less than a week.

Relevance and Potential Applications

The Harvard team has previously shown the possibility of reversing cellular aging without causing unregulated cell growth. This was done by inserting specific Yamanaka genes into cells using a viral vector. Studies on various tissues and organs like the optic nerve, brain, kidney, and muscle have yielded encouraging results, including improved vision and extended lifespan in mice. Additionally, recent reports have documented improved vision in monkeys.

These findings have profound implications, paving the way for regenerative medicine and potentially full-body rejuvenation. By establishing a chemical alternative to gene therapy for age reversal, this research could potentially transform the treatment of aging, injuries, and age-related diseases. The approach also suggests the possibility of lower development costs and shorter timelines. Following successful results in reversing blindness in monkeys in April 2023, plans for human clinical trials using the lab’s age reversal gene therapy are currently underway.

Views from the Research Team

“Until recently, the best we could do was slow aging. New discoveries suggest we can now reverse it,” said David A. Sinclair, A.O., Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School and lead scientist on the project. “This process has previously required gene therapy, limiting its widespread use.”

The team at Harvard envisions a future where age-related diseases can be effectively treated, injuries can be repaired more efficiently, and the dream of whole-body rejuvenation becomes a reality. “This new discovery offers the potential to reverse aging with a single pill, with applications ranging from improving eyesight to effectively treating numerous age-related diseases,” Sinclair said.

Reference: “Chemically induced reprogramming to reverse cellular aging” by Jae-Hyun Yang, Christopher A. Petty, Thomas Dixon-McDougall, Maria Vina Lopez, Alexander Tyshkovskiy, Sun Maybury-Lewis, Xiao Tian, Nabilah Ibrahim, Zhili Chen, Patrick T. Griffin, Matthew Arnold, Jien Li, Oswaldo A. Martinez, Alexander Behn, Ryan Rogers-Hammond, Suzanne Angeli, Vadim N. Gladyshev and David A. Sinclair, 12 July 2023, Aging-US . DOI: 10.18632/aging.204896

More on SciTechDaily

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Rapid Mental Rejuvenation: Experimental Drug Reverses Age-Related Cognitive Decline Within Days

8 anti-aging vitamins and nutrients that actually work, ranked.

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Rejuvenation Research: Can Infusions of “Young” Blood Increase Lifespan?

Mit physicists harness quantum “time reversal” for detecting gravitational waves and dark matter, 33 comments on "age reversal breakthrough: harvard/mit discovery could enable whole-body rejuvenation".

How long would it be possible to be available to public consumption?

“If living was a thing that money could buy, then the rich would live and the poor would die.”

Shut up. My mother was reading articles like this when she was young. I’ve been reading them all my life. My grandkids will also be reading them.

YEP. Promises! Promises! All the way back to the Egyptian Pharaohs and their “cost-intensive” bid for immortality. If one skips the fancy Jar and storage in a Mausoleum, it “more affordable”. It certainly won’t matter to the Dead. As such, memory and some photos will do.

Is David Sinclair involved? Then, it’s very probably more snake oil.

If science is able to eliminate death control via senescence and apoptosis, and this technology spreads to everyone regardless of affordability, then birth control will become even more critical, in fact essential, to keep the human race from overpopulating into mass disaster. But it would also mean the end of natural human evolution, and the advent of taking our evolution into our own hands via genetic modification, because it would also mean the end of children, who are evolution’s natural mutation-testing petri dish, in the name of preserving terrestrial space for the survival of the glut of already living and henceforth virtually immortal adults.

We will not be threatened by overpopulation. Man is not that stupid.

This idea tires me. It falls in line with UFO and the Pyramids. Waste of time and emotion.

Live life well and properly instead; doing your best to be loving kind to all. Peace.

They have literally already done it with mice.

People will probably mass produce less but they are working on taller buildings and colonizing the moons. The tech is there.

1. Reversing methylation doesn’t cure aging. Even if we can control senescent cells, extend telomeres, restore healthy mitochondria, and restore the thymus gland. None of the aging scientists have a plan for repairing DNA errors. We incur 10,000 to 100,000 DNA breaks in each cell every day. 99%+ are repaired correctly, but some are not. Those mistakes carry over to future cell generations. Most DNA is junk, other genes are not important to the tissue damaged, so every mistake is not crucial. There are genetic variants that do a better job of repair and are more represented in the population of centenarians. And there are other things that accumulate like glucosepane, forms of amyloid plaques like misfolded transthyretin, genetically damaged mitochondria (they burn fuel inefficiently making wastes like lipofuscin which is the brown stuff in age spots, and these lipofuscin accumulations are not just on the skin. They are in muscle, heart, liver, kidneys, and the brain). We accumulate scar tissue. Accumulated latent infections often promote diseases, quite possibly schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, and others. 2. The Earth can handle 500x current human population provided we develop technology to directly manufacture food from atoms, recycle everything, live in greater density, and in more diverse locations, like under domes in Antarctica, on the oceans, underground, on stilts above the surface of the land, without interfering with the land. And we can build large space stations and inhabit the Moon, Mars, asteroids… The Solar System can support many trillions of humans while dramatically improving the Earth environment. 3. Machines and tech that allow food surplus and some tech like contact lenses and braces, limit selection pressure, but it remains. We can and should reduce genetic birth defects through genetic surgery at the zygote or blastocyst stage. But there will always be natural births that are not repaired. We can fix some of this, but the repairs will be limited.

Let me die, and let it die! Mankind is fooling with God and should take heed! The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

Were we playing God, when we developed fire? Clothing? Shoes? The plow? Antibiotics? Anesthesia? Eyeglasses? Scuba gear? Airplanes? Spaceships? If you haven’t noticed, life expectancy has tripled from the time of the Romans. If it doubles or triples again, how is that any different? I am not saying this treatment will double it. I would find that highly unlikely, but in combination with other advances, it is not inconceivable. It is very unlikely you will be kept alive, if you sign a do not resuscitate will, and have a copy in your wallet, or on a metal wristband. Certainly, no one will force you to take some elixir of life or anything like that. Seems exceedingly unlikely, anyway.

How does one sign up for the clinical trials?

I would do the clinical trial as well!

How can you try this?

This would be extremely dangerous to try. It may be justified for some very important tissue like the retina to restore vision or the “hair” cells in the cochlea to restore stop maddening ear ringing, or to attempt to reverse spinal injuries. For whole body, there are many steps to go to insure safety. They have to test on normal mice, perhaps dogs, then monkeys, then people with some unusual condition where methylation aging is accelerated, then probably the very old, with little to lose. Probably with a very modest dose, at first. Probably a good 15 years, before they get to ordinary 40-70-year-olds. Maybe millionaires will get it in some Latin American country in 5 or 10 years. But that would be very risky. I would try gene therapy, way before I would try this.

I’m open for a clinical trial. 58 yr old healthy male. Sign me up!

I’m really hoping that there will be side effects like growing my long blonde hair back. If I may die during this process let me die with my boots on! And a full head of hair!

I am with you on this Troy!

There have been other successful attempts to correct fast aging mice. The type of fast aging mice are well-chosen, or engineered exactly for the test. Something of a parlor trick. But it has a purpose. It verifies what has gone wrong and that it can be fixed. But it gives the impression that you can just apply this to people with decent chance of success. Unless and until they dramatically increase the life expectancy of normal mice, they have not proven anything. That takes a few years. Hopefully, they already started a couple of years ago because doing something dramatic, like doubling average lifespan, will take 5 or 6 years to finish. There are many things which change during aging. This will not correct the other dozen, even if it worked perfectly in humans with no side effects. And that is a big “if” because it may restore senescent cells, which can be very dangerous. There is also the risk that cells will regress too far and forget what they are and create tumors. If you talk to aging scientists, they will likely emphasize the aspect of aging they are working on, and mostly ignore the others. Methylation may be upstream of some of these, but not all of them. Various types of accumulations with age are unlikely to be addressed. Things like the accumulation of genetic damage. Each cell’s DNA is broken 10,000-100,000 times a day. And most of the time correctly repaired, but not all the time. Errors are carried over to the next generation of cells. And there is this stuff called Glucosepane which accumulates between cells making the tissues stiff, especially arteries, and is implicated in a number of aging diseases. Neither our bodies nor scientists have figured out how to reverse this. There are also the accumulations of misfolded proteins called amyloid. And there are 30 kinds, not just the 1 involved in Alzheimer’s, like Wild-type ATTR Amyloidosis, which may be near certain over 110 years of age. That stiffens the heart, and make exertion very difficult.

Clickbait goodness

How much reverse aging are we talking about? The paper as I understand it spoke of age reversal of only a few years. Also how long will this “pill” remain in effect? Will there be a rebound or is the effect permanent? Much remains to be done but still a groundbreaking paper even if the results don’t lead to an anti-aging pill.

Willing to take part of the human trials. Soon to be 62 & Marine vet!

At 94 and in good health and determined to live beyond 100+, what specifics should I consider beyond a careful diet, three one hour days weakly at the gym, routine shopping and Church on Sunday.

I say,..we’ll see. Mother Nature is not one to be messed with.

Mother nature is messed with all the time. Vaccines, surgeries, pills, etc…

Mother nature provided each of us with a brain. Our brains gives us the power to learn, to think and to create. I we were not destined to use our brains to benefit our species, why would we have been given brains?

Still collect social security?

Always it’s the mice that get the first shot at it. How about human trials for those of us with little to loose? Old age is the pits. Once hearing is gone, eyesight starts to fade and dementia begins to slow brain functions, there’s not much quality of life left. I’d rather take a chance on restoring full function for a few years than slowly fade into uselessness. Even if it doesn’t work, at least I’d contribute some data to the research community.

By a small Chance I would like to Volunteer for your study. This has been a Thought throughout my life to stay young looking while we age. I’m Preserving my body (Cryonics) for the further to bring myself back to my 20s.

To those who say we can’t or shouldn’t try to slow or reverse the biological aging process I say … Fine, then don’t participate. To others who wish to contribute to society, to preserve and use the lifetime of knowledge they’ve accumulated, the skills they’ve learned and to pass that irreplaceable wisdom on to younger generations, I say join the human race and try to make it better. Death is a complete and terrible waste of everything we learn throughout our lives. Everything others took the time and effort to teach us and everything we’ve learned from our own experiences. The longer we live, the wiser we become. The longer we live, the more we can contribute to the sum of human knowledge. As one who has attended the university of life for almost 80 years, I feel that I have useful knowledge and skills which should be passed on. Deteriorating sight and hearing are obstructing my ability to teach or conduct research. Unless I can participate in age reversal testing and restore my physical abilities, I will eventually become a burden on society and negate whatever useful contributions I’ve made in the past. Give me the opportunity to participate in developing health and vitality restoration therapies. If successful, I can continue to contribute. If I die in the attempt, my body and whatever can be learned from a study of it, will contribute to future research. Either outcome will contribute useful knowledge to the human race.

Of the many stages of life delineated in the ancient Buddhist Sutras,”Old Age & Death” are merged into one’! While it’s interesting to learn another of the myrriad proximal causes the end of of life, there,’s always a novel one to to set my 86-year old self up straight: “Wild-type ATTR Amyloidosis, which may be near certain over 110 years of age. That stiffens the heart, and makes exertion very difficult.” In fact, We’re all going to be killed by statistics! All Men are Mortal is a mathematically certain truth about the (empirical) world! I’m relying on Elysium: “I’m gonna ride [my horse] ’till I can’t no more!” (Old Town Road)

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Exercise—from gentle stretching to high-intensity training—is not only important for physical health, but Harvard experts are finding benefits for stress, memory, mood, and more.

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Activity, not exercise.

Professor I-Min Lee says what’s important for health isn’t necessarily physical “exercise,” but physical activity: moving muscles and expending energy however you can.

Make it fun

Making exercise necessary and fun can help us overcome our natural reluctance to work out, says Professor Daniel Lieberman.

Prioritize strength

Harvard Medical School alum Anita Reddy says increased strength helps with the prevention of arthritis and bone fractures, so it’s important to stay active as we get older.

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Exercise plays a key role in the physical and mental wellbeing of people of all ages. Research shows that moderate physical activity can reduce the risk of heart disease, depression, dementia, and several types of cancers.

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Researchers have found that exercise is not just something that should be practiced by young, healthy individuals. It is also important and beneficial for people with joint issues , people with limited options , people who require low impact , people who are pregnant , and even people who only have time for walking .

At Harvard there are plenty of opportunities to get moving and have fun with exercise. From gym facilities and group classes with Harvard Recreation , to CrimsonZip ‘s workout buddy connections, members of the Harvard community can participate in a wide range of activities (even goat yoga !).

An array of benefits

Harvard researchers are discovering all the ways in which exercise improves physical and mental wellbeing .

Learn why exercise may make your grandkids healthier

Small bursts can offer big changes

A study by Massachusetts General Hospital has found that 12-minute exercise bursts demonstrated an uptick in circulating metabolites, which govern insulin resistance, stress, inflammation, and longevity.

Exercise can improve cognition for those with Alzheimer’s

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Lack of exercise could contribute to an increased cancer risk

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Alleviate stress with exercise

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Harvard Says It Will No Longer Take Positions on Matters Outside of the University

The policy could ease pressure on the school to issue statements on current events. Officials were criticized for their handling of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks.

By Vimal Patel and Anemona Hartocollis

Harvard said on Tuesday that it would now avoid taking positions on matters that are not “relevant to the core function of the university,” accepting the recommendations of a faculty committee that urged the university to dramatically reduce its messages on issues of the day.

If put into practice, Harvard would no longer issue official statements of empathy, which it did for Ukraine, after the Russian invasion, and for the victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, for example.

“In issuing official statements of empathy, the university runs the risk of appearing to care more about some places and events than others,” the report said. “And because few, if any, world events can be entirely isolated from conflicting viewpoints, issuing official empathy statements runs the risk of alienating some members of the community by expressing implicit solidarity with others.”

The university’s Institutional Voice Working Group, made up of eight faculty members, issued the report, with a set of principles and a recommended path forward, which the administration and governing board accepted.

“Harvard isn’t a government,” Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and a co-chair of the committee that developed the recommendations, said in an interview with The Harvard Gazette , released Tuesday as part of the university’s announcement. “It shouldn’t have a foreign policy or a domestic policy.”

The report, however, did not fully embrace “institutional neutrality” — a principle promoted by the University of Chicago, in which universities commit to staying out of political and social matters. Some universities, including Stanford University and Northwestern, announced shortly after the Hamas attack that they would adopt the policy.

Mr. Feldman said though the recommendations had some overlap with institutional neutrality, there were also differences.

A key difference, Mr. Feldman said to The Gazette, is that “as an institution with values, we have a responsibility to promote our core function as an educational institution and defend ourselves against forces that seek to undermine our academic values. In that sense, we aren’t neutral, and we can’t be.”

In an interview, Mr. Feldman provided examples about when Harvard should weigh in on political matters. He mentioned a proposal by former President Donald J. Trump to collect “billions and billions of dollars” by taxing large private university endowments. Advocating against such a plan, he said, “would fall squarely within the function of the university.”

Mr. Feldman also noted that Harvard advocated for affirmative action in the courts, and that admissions policy “would count as a core function of the university.”

Tom Ginsburg, faculty director of the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago, said neither of those examples run afoul of Chicago’s stance on neutrality. Nevertheless, he said, he supported Harvard’s new position.

One of the first sentences in the Harvard report states that the university is not institutionally neutral but then the rest of the report describes how it is committing to institutional neutrality, Mr. Ginsburg said.

“Their policies look like they’re converging in the direction that many other schools have moved in,” Mr. Ginsburg said. “But they don’t want to admit that.”

One reason for that, Mr. Ginsburg said, is that some quarters of the academy see neutrality as a misleading term, with many believing silence itself is taking a stance. Others view it as an impossibility.

“There is no such thing as institutional neutrality,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, said on Tuesday. “Those who claim they are going to abide by it find a myriad fallback positions in which they say, ‘but not in this case.’ When it comes to matters of political salience, universities will do what they’ve always done. Institutional neutrality is a false flag.”

For years, universities had, mostly without controversy, issued messages on any number of world and local events, from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to racism at home. But perhaps unlike any other issue, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict split university communities, and clarified the downsides of such statements on highly contested topics.

Harvard came under withering criticism for how it communicated after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel.

Harvard, for some critics, like the university’s former president Lawrence H. Summers, was woefully slow in denouncing a pro-Palestinian letter by a student coalition, which held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for the unfolding violence.” Dr. Summers suggested that the void left by Harvard’s slow response had allowed the student statement to stand as the university’s official position in the minds of some people.

After Harvard’s president at the time, Claudine Gay, released a series of statements, including one that condemned the “terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” and called them “abhorrent,” the administration was accused of capitulating to influential alumni and wealthy donors. She ended up resigning, in part for her handling of the protests over the Israel-Hamas war.

Mr. Feldman said the transition would not be easy. It would require a culture change, for people inside and outside of the university to accept that “the university has genuinely adopted a ‘say less’ policy,” he told The Gazette.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

Vimal Patel writes about higher education with a focus on speech and campus culture. More about Vimal Patel

Anemona Hartocollis is a national reporter for The Times, covering higher education. More about Anemona Hartocollis

The Campus Protests Over the Gaza War

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​The University of Pennsylvania issued temporary rules that significantly rein in protests on campus  and, for the first time, explicitly ban encampments, less than a month after the police cleared away a pro-Palestinian encampment at the university and arrested 33 people.

​Police officers arrested 13 people after pro-Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves  in the office of the president of Stanford University.

​Weeks after counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, the university police made the first arrest related to the attack .

The Right Price for Protests:  ​At pro-Palestinian demonstrations, students have broken codes of conduct and, sometimes, the law. But the question of whether and how to discipline  them is vexing universities.

A Free Speech Champion’s Advice:  ​U.C. Berkeley’s leader, Carol Christ, has spent the last several months asking students  to consider the way speech and protest affect the entire campus community.

Making Sense of the Protests:  In the weeks leading up to graduation, our reporter spoke with more than a dozen students at Columbia University and Barnard College about how the campus protests had shaped them .

A Complex Summer:  Many university leaders and officials may be confronting federal investigations, disputes over student discipline  — and the prospect that the protests start all over again in the fall.

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Harvard Will Refrain From Controversial Statements About Public Policy Issues

Updated May 28, 2024, at 12:34 p.m.

After months of grappling with a campus fractured by a polarizing debate over the Israel-Hamas war, Harvard announced on Tuesday that the University and its leadership will refrain from taking official positions on controversial public policy issues.

The University’s new stance followed a report produced from a faculty-led “Institutional Voice” working group , which advised leadership to not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote in an email that he accepted the working group’s recommendations, which were also endorsed by the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

“There will be close cases where reasonable people disagree about whether a given issue is or is not directly related to the core function of the university,” the report stated. “The university’s policy in those situations should be to err on the side of avoiding official statements.”

The policy will apply to all University administrators and governing board members, as well as deans, department chairs, and faculty councils, according to the working group.

The new guidelines come just months after former Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned following fierce criticism over her initial statement after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, a scenario that the University hopes to never repeat with this new stance.

The “Institutional Voice” recommendations bring Harvard closer in line with peer universities that have adopted stances of institutional neutrality, but the working group’s report and Garber’s announcement were careful to highlight that the University will not be neutral.

“Our report argues that the University is fundamentally committed to a non-neutral set of values specifically, getting to the truth by experiment, open inquiry, and debate,” said Noah R. Feldman ’92, who co-chaired the working group and serves as a Harvard Law School professor.

“The University is regularly under attack today, as truth itself is under attack,” Feldman added. “This report says the University should not be neutral in that important matter of the future of universities.”

The announcement is part of a broader effort by Garber to guide Harvard out of crisis and safeguard the University against the type of attacks it faced last fall. Garber also established a working group on open inquiry and twin presidential task forces to combat antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias.

The “Institutional Voice” working group’s report never mentioned the controversy that contributed to Gay’s resignation or mentioned her by name. Still, the report contained several thinly veiled references to the events of last fall, when more than 30 student groups signed a statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on the country, which forced Gay to publicly distance herself and the University from the statement.

“Individuals within the university, exercising their academic freedom, sometimes make statements that occasion strong disagreement,” the report stated. “When this happens, the university should clarify that they do not speak for the university and that no one is authorized to speak on behalf of the university except the university’s leadership.”

Just like Gay faced backlash from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine Harvard affiliates, the group noted that any statement on a controversial public issue will likely anger somebody.

“Because few, if any, world events can be entirely isolated from conflicting viewpoints, issuing official empathy statements runs the risk of alienating some members of the community by expressing implicit solidarity with others,” the group wrote.

In his Tuesday email, which was co-signed by 17 other top administrators, Garber wrote that “the process of translating these principles into concrete practice will, of course, require time and experience.”

The group, overseen by interim Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 and led by Feldman and Philosophy professor Alison J. Simmons, came to the conclusion in less than two months that Harvard officials should default to not making statements, although the University had been planning the effort to consider institutional neutrality since at least February.

Though the report will serve as a document that Garber and future University leaders can refer to when they are pressured to release a public statement, the report’s carefully worded language also provides administrators with enough flexibility to issue statements when they deem necessary to do so.

While administrators should not make statements on behalf of the University regarding external events, the statement clarified that some centers and clinics which advocate specific policies should continue to do so, but should not “purport to speak on behalf of the university or beyond their domain expertise” or “extend their zone of expertise unreasonably.”

The institutional voice group is the first of four task forces deployed by Garber to address controversies surrounding the University to issue recommendations. While the co-chairs of the task forces to address antisemitism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias said they would release their recommendations in the spring, the groups later pushed their timeline to the fall .

Implementing an effective statement of neutrality is Garber’s first major policy change since he clarified protest rules and restrictions in January. The relative speed of the working group’s deliberations suggests that the policy to refrain from statements enjoyed broad support from the University’s stakeholders.

The statement notably does not address decisions surrounding University investment and divestment decisions, the issue at the heart of a wave of pro-Palestine campus protests and a 20-day encampment in Harvard Yard.

In 2020, then-Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow committed the University to gradually phasing out its investment in fossil fuels on the grounds that “climate change is a defining issue of our time.” At an April 30 town hall meeting, Garber told faculty that divesting from weapons manufacturing was different from fossil fuels because there was less of a consensus around that issue.

“There is a big difference between an issue in which there is close to unanimity about whether or not we should invest in an asset class, which was the case around fossil fuels, and the situation we are in now,” Garber said, according to a transcript from an attendee.

Feldman said the working group did not consider financial decisions a “statement in words” and that the University could still choose to divest under the new policy.

“It’s totally appropriate for the University to explain its position on investment or divestment,” Feldman said. “But we don’t think that our recommendations on institutional voice dictate an answer.”

“That's an independent decision for the University,” he added.

Institutional neutrality became a serious topic of conversation in October, with many affiliates pointing to the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven report as a model to avoid future controversy.

Feldman said that because the Kalven report is more than 50 years old, it does not accurately reflect “the way that that issue ought to be considered today.”

“Most people today don't believe that it's possible or desirable for a university to be genuinely neutral,” Feldman said. “The University, just by its mere existence, and by doing the things it does, is necessarily invested in certain non-neutral beliefs and values.”

“The University is not value neutral,” Feldman added.

—Staff writer Emma H. Haidar can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @HaidarEmma .

—Staff writer Cam E. Kettles can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her on X @cam_kettles or on Threads @camkettles .

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The humbling of Harvard

Why should what harvard has to say about the world take up so much oxygen.

What ever will we do now that Harvard University will no longer issue official statements about public matters? How will the lowly, non-Harvard affiliated souls of the world know what to think?

Just joking. Harvard’s declaration of a modified version of “institutional neutrality” is a big deal, not just because of what it represents from a policy perspective but also because of the initial sources of the pressure that triggered movement toward that decision — Republicans in Congress, bolstered by right-wing media outlets, and powerful donors with their own political agenda. Call it the humbling of Harvard. At least to the outside world, it looks like the academic leaders who represent this proud institution have decided now is not the time to tangle with external forces they previously would have ignored.

One result is that the recently formed Institutional Voice working group has decided the best official voice for Harvard is no official voice, with exceptions carved out for public matters that directly affect “the university’s core function.” If that helps Harvard achieve the mission first embraced in the mid-1960s at the University of Chicago — to “restore open and honest discourse on campus and reduce self-censorship” — that’s a welcome and noble outcome.

If it’s just a way to appease critics until the current storm over the Israel-Hamas war passes, it’s much less impressive. Meanwhile, the new policy won’t automatically end campus unrest, resolve ongoing charges of antisemitism and Islamophobia, or stop the debate over university investment practices. Harvard will still have to deal with all of that, just like any other institute of higher learning.

It’s worth revisiting what got Harvard to this point . The controversy over what it has to say about public events links back to the initial response by then-Harvard president Claudine Gay to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, which a network of students, faculty, alumni, and donors denounced as weak compared with Harvard’s statements about other world events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In an appearance before a House panel in December alongside the presidents of MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, Gay was grilled on Harvard’s response to antisemitism by Republican Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, a Harvard alum who had been calling for Gay’s resignation. An exchange about whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated a campus code of conduct became a flash point, with Gay, along with the two other university presidents, saying it depended on the context of the speech.

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After that equivocation further enflamed matters, Gay apologized in an interview with The Harvard Crimson. But then conservative activist Christopher Rufo raised questions about plagiarism in Gay’s 1997 doctoral dissertation. That was followed up by more questions about her academic research that were published by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet. Harvard’s governing board initially backed Gay, but she ultimately resigned on Jan. 2 . When that happened, Stefanik took joyful credit .

As documented by The New York Times, powerful alumni and donors also played a major role in Gay’s demise . And, as the Israel-Hamas war continued, leading to student protests and ugly campus confrontations, that network of money and influence continued to vie to shape policy and leadership decisions at Harvard and other elite universities. As my colleague Shirley Leung wrote in October, donors “are powerful forces exerting pressure on campus policies and affairs. But are their hundreds of millions of dollars worth the price of academic freedom?”

If this new Harvard policy of refraining as an institution from statements about public events leads to more academic freedom, more debate, and more diverse thinking, that is positive. If it is just a behind-the-scenes way to silence certain voices and duck tough issues, that is disappointing but not surprising. To some degree, deciding what directly affects “the university’s core function” already sounds like it’s going to be a matter of self-interest. For example, Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and a cochair of the committee that developed the newly adopted recommendations, told the Times that a proposal by Donald Trump to tax large private university endowments “would fall squarely within the function of the university.” What positions beyond protecting its wealth and status will be seen as part of Harvard’s core function? Harvard will have to show us the definition is about more than self-preservation.

If there’s another upside to the new Harvard policy, it is that it empowers other voices to be heard and make a difference on important matters. After all, why should we only think that what Harvard has to say matters? Of course, there are many smart people there. But there are smart people in other places, too. The world does not begin and end at Harvard. So why should what Harvard has to say — or not say — about the world take up so much oxygen?

Joan Vennochi is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her @joan_vennochi .

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