On May 31, 2015, the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC) announced that it intended to wind down operations of the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC), in Southborough, Massachusetts. The school cited diminished sponsored-research funding.

The announcement also noted that the decision follows a two-year period during which the Center leadership successfully addressed operating issues with input from the National Institutes of  Health (NIH) and other governing agencies. The process resulted in new procedures that have significantly strengthened the Center’s day-to-day activities and that can serve as a model for other institutions throughout the country. Many of those changes carried additional costs, and Harvard Medical School (HMS) will continue to make investments in the Center to ensure ongoing compliance with all federal regulations.

That may be read as a reference to highly publicized lapses in care at the NEPRC, including direct violation of federal animal-welfare regulations, warnings from federal overseers, and ensuing urgent changes in operations. The reference to the funding environment echoes HMS’s most recent annual report, indicating a substantial operating deficit in fiscal year 2012 as research funding diminished, before the recent federal budget “sequester” took effect, reducing research grants for the balance of this year.

Updated April 23: Carolyn Y. Johnson, the Boston Globe staff member who has led coverage of the story, reported that researchers were very surprised by HMS’s decision; that some 20 faculty members, 32 postdoctoral researchers and graduate students, and 150 staff members were affected; and that provision will need to be made to provide for nearly 2,000 animals at the facility, which was supported by a five-year base federal grant and received $27 million in federal funding in the most recent year. She citeed HMS estimates that the facility would require $25 million of Harvard investment in coming years, and notes that the much smaller animal facility in the Longwood Medical Area, with 42 primates, would continue to operate.

Harvard Medical School announced today that it would wind down operations of the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC) over the next 12 to 24 months rather than seek to renew a five-year federal grant to continue operating the Center, and indicated its leadership had begun to work with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on a transition plan.

School leaders acknowledged that the decision to wind down operations of the NEPRC was extremely difficult in light of the groundbreaking research that has been conducted at the Center over the past 50 years. As they weighed whether to renew the base grant from the NIH, HMS leaders made a strategic decision based on a review of the long-term academic benefits and the financial cost of continuing to operate the NEPRC.

The NEPRC is one of eight National Primate Research Centers supported by the NIH. Harvard has informed NIH officials of its intentions, and they have begun working together to transition as much of the work of the NEPRC as possible to the other National Primate Research Centers.