The policy states, "Every [Faculty] member is expected to accord the University his or her primary professional loyalty, and to arrange outside obligations, financial interests, and activities so as not to conflict or interfere with this overriding commitment to the University."

According to Albert Gold, associate dean for administration in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences (DEAS), most outside funding to his division comes from government agencies rather than corporations.

"Our research support is predominantly federally funded by agencies...such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Defense," Gold says. "There's probably not a department that you can name that doesn't give us some grant."

Still, some corporate technology giants like Intel and Sun Microsystems fund DEAS research--often providing no more than a single sentence designating what the money should be used for.

Because of this distinction between the types of corporate funding received by FAS and HMS researchers, medical school professors say they support the current policy as stands.

Having spent 21 years at NIH, whose conflict-of-interest policy he describes as "far more severe" than that of HMS, Sachs says the medical school's policy is appropriate.

And while some critics of the policy fear that it may be a handicap in Harvard's efforts to attract new faculty members, Howley says this should not be a concern.

"We've recruited a number of faculty within the last six years," he says. "It has never been an issue in faculty recruitment and I know of no faculty we've lost because of it."