BASF, a major international chemical company headquartered in Germany, has established a major research initiative at Harvard, the BASF Advanced Research Initiative , that will provide up to $4M/yr in research support. BASF was drawn to the University by the strong interdisciplinary community fostered by the Harvard MRSEC. The new initiative will support collaborative research by teams of Harvard professors and postdoctoral fellows investigating common themes and will be modeled on the IRG structure in the MRSEC program, complementing the research carried out by the Harvard MRSEC. Here, the BASF Advanced Research Initiative's director, Jens Rieger (center) discusses research with Anderson Shum (right), a former REU student who is now a BASF-supported graduate student at Harvard. The presence of the BASF initiative in parallel to our MRSEC will reinforce the value of collaboration with industry, their unique approach to research problems, and the important opportunities for industrial career paths for our students and postdoctoral fellows.