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Arthur Jaffe: walked out of the institute in November. Credit: K. SNIBBE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE

A string of resignations at the Massachusetts-based Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) has left some top mathematicians uneasy about the future of one of the discipline's most benevolent backers.

Last November, CMI president Arthur Jaffe — a mathematical physicist at Harvard University and recent past president of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) — resigned, with two other members of the four-strong scientific advisory board.

Concerns about the resignations were voiced at the AMS annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, on 15–18 January. “I'm very worried,” says Peter Sarnak, a mathematician at both Princeton and New York universities. “For pure mathematics, the CMI has been a godsend. If it disappeared, it would be very serious.”

The CMI was set up in 1998 by Landon Clay, a local financier and philanthropist, with Jaffe as its first president, to fund innovative research and raise the profile of mathematics. It is perhaps best known for offering prizes worth US$1 million apiece to anyone who could solve seven famous mathematical problems (see Nature 405, 383; 2000).

The institute also provided about $3 million in grants and awards worldwide last year. “The Clay has raised our visibility and provided a significant amount of resources to mathematicians,” says Hyman Bass of the University of Michigan, the current AMS president. “It has become a major part of the field. Clearly, the fact that a significant part of the advisory board has jumped ship implies something has gone badly awry.”

The scientific advisory board “has made some very careful decisions on what is needed for mathematics in the future”, says Jennifer Chayes, co-manager of the theory group at Seattle-based Microsoft Research.

Jaffe says that he was told in November he would have to leave at the end of 2002, but that no reason was given for the request. In the meantime, he says, the board of directors proposed constraints on his interactions with other members of the science board that made it impossible for him to do his job.

Eric Woodbury, the CMI's chief administrator, maintains that Jaffe's three-year term as CMI president had simply expired. Jaffe disputes this. “To my knowledge, there was no term,” he says. There is no mention of a term in the CMI's by-laws.

The other board members who resigned were Edward Witten, of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and Alain Connes, of the Collège de France in Paris. Both are recipients of the discipline's highest honour, the Fields medal. A copy of Connes' resignation letter, obtained by Nature, cites Jaffe's removal as his reason for quitting. “The main reason is that I disagree with the dismissal of Arthur Jaffe as president and do not want to assume any responsibility for this move,” Connes wrote.

Woodbury says that the institute is undergoing a normal transition. “It is expected there will be turnover from time to time,” he says. Three new members, including two Fields medal winners, have agreed to join the scientific board, he says. Woodbury expects a new president to be appointed this year. “Our level of programming and research support will be continued,” he says. “And the $7 million in prizes won't go away.”