December 17, 2012

Hunt for Federal Funds Gives Classified Research a Lift

Thinkers, Professors, Soldiers, Spies 1

Pete Marovich for The Chronicle

Frank J. Cilluffo (center), director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington U., attends a recent GW event with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (right), who chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Mr. Cilluffo feels that lifting GW's ban on classified research would help his institute fulfill its mission.

By Paul Basken

Washington

More than two generations since university physicists helped win World War II, the marriage of academe and spycraft remains a matter of profound unease.

For some colleges and professors, classified research promises prestige and money. Powerhouses like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Johns Hopkins University have for decades run large classified laboratories. But most other universities either don't allow such research or conduct it quietly, and in small doses. The