Announcing the Committee on Guidelines for Establishing New Institute Entities

Dear colleagues,

Reflecting MIT’s entrepreneurial spirit, members of our community are driven to create and advance new pathways in research, education, and innovation. These pursuits can sometimes lead to the creation of new entities (such as alliances, centers, institutes, and initiatives). We have heard from the community the need to provide greater clarity for community members looking to establish new named entities at MIT.

For this reason, I am forming a new committee, the Committee on Guidelines for Establishing New Institute Entities – “GENIE” for short – and charging it with recommending written guidelines for establishing such new undertakings at MIT. I am very pleased that Anne White, the School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Engineering and associate vice president for research administration, has generously agreed to chair the committee. The committee membership (below) includes representatives of all schools and the College of Computing, as well as professional staff who have been closely involved in different aspects of establishing new named entities.

I have asked the committee to consult broadly with deans, DLCI heads, and relevant administrative offices, and to provide its recommendations by May 15. For more details on the committee’s scope, please see the charge below my signature.

I am grateful to Anne and the committee members for taking on this assignment. If you have comments you’d like the committee to consider, you can email them to genie@mit.edu.

Sincerely,

Anantha P. Chandrakasan
Provost

Committee on Guidelines for Establishing New Institute Entities

Charge to the Committee

MIT has a number of world-class centers, hubs, institutes, laboratories, initiatives, collaborations, and other entities that do leading-edge work in research and education. With the Institute’s entrepreneurial culture, members of our community seek to launch new research, education, and innovation activities.

To provide greater clarity for community members looking to start something new, MIT must ensure uniform guidelines for naming, funding levels, and approval processes for new entities, such as centers, institutes, and initiatives, among others. These guidelines should be well communicated and easily accessible, to provide clear expectations and prevent confusion.

To this end, the provost charges the Committee on Guidelines for Establishing New Institute Entities (GENIE) with documenting a clear process for establishing and naming a new entity. The committee’s work will apply to entities regardless of funding source. In particular, the committee will address the following (with the ability to raise other relevant issues that emerge during its work):

• When Institute-level approval is required to establish and name a new entity, and when it is not
• Clear definitions and guidelines for the use of different entity types (e.g., hub, lab, center, initiative, institute, etc.)
• Guidelines for the funding level for each type of entity
• Guidelines for identifying potential sources of funding
• Recommendations on whether new entities should be established for fixed terms, with periodic review and renewal
• Naming considerations, taking into account MIT’s use-of-name policies
• Who should be consulted before new entities are approved, based on type
• A reasonable timeline for approving new entities

The committee will consult with deans, the Office of the Vice President for Research, DLCI heads, and relevant administrative offices. It will assess the existing landscape at MIT, reviewing past practice and cases where new entities were established. It will also look at peer institutions to learn from their processes and experiences. Finally, it will review existing work in this area already undertaken by the Offices of the Provost, the Recording Secretary, and Resource Development. The committee will submit its report to the provost by May 15, 2026.

Committee Members

Anne White, chair; School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of Engineering; Associate Vice President for Research Administration, Office of the Vice President for Research

Danyel Barnard Ablon, Executive Director, Digital, Brand & Internal Communications, Institute Office of Communications

Elizabeth Crabtree, Executive Director, Development Planning and Initiatives, Office of Resource Development

William Green, Hoyt C. Hottel Professor of Chemical Engineering; Director, MIT Energy Initiative

Heather Hagerty, Assistant Dean for Development, School of Engineering

Michelle Hanlon, Howard W. Johnson Professor and Deputy Dean for Faculty and Research, Sloan School of Management

David Hsu, Associate Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning

Meghan McCollum Fenno, Executive Director, Office of Strategic Alliances, Transactions & Translation; Counsel, Office of the General Counsel

Richelle Nessralla, Counsel, Office of the General Counsel

Asu Özdağlar, Department Head and MathWorks Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Deputy Dean of Academics, Schwarzman College of Computing

Rebecca Saxe, John W. Jarve (1978) Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience; Associate Dean, School of Science

Karen Shirer, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice President for Research

David Singer, Head and Raphael Dorman-Helen Starbuck Professor of Political Science

Julia Topalian, Director of Gift Administration and Recording Secretary, Office of the Recording Secretary 

Maria Yang, William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Mechanical Engineering; Deputy Dean, School of Engineering

Tom Kiley, staff to the committee; Senior Advisor, Office of the Provost

Mary Ellen Sinkus, staff to the committee; Assistant Provost for Finance, Office of the Provost