A group of University of Hawai'i faculty members has examined a proposed research contract with the Navy and issued a report yesterday that reiterates a number of faculty and community concerns.

The report reaches no conclusions and makes no overall recommendations.

"We were not a committee that was convened to necessarily deliver a verdict," said Calvin Pang, a law professor and member of the committee. "We tried to accumulate facts for the senate to consider."

It looks at whether the proposed military research center fits with the university's philosophy and mission, and includes concerns whether a military affiliated research center is appropriate, "given the U.S. military involvement in the overthrow of Hawai'i's sovereign government ... " the report states.

The report was posted online yesterday.

"Insufficient outreach has been done to listen to Native Hawaiian concerns about the establishment of a UARC (the Navy acronym for University Affiliated Research Center) at UH Manoa," the report reads.

It suggests the university administration work with the Center for Hawaiian Studies, the Hawaiian language program and the Kualii Council for help in identifying issues of concern to Native Hawaiians.

The report states that faculty members have opposed classified research on campus in the past, and that even the publication of unclassified information could be slowed under the proposed contract.

Proponents say the UARC could add an additional funding source as well as prestige that could draw further funding to the university and community, according to the report.

But, the faculty members wrote, it could also color decision-making by the university, causing the institution to fall more closely in line with U.S. Department of Defense goals.

Mimi Sharma, a professor of Asian studies who opposes the UARC, said she thought it "highly debatable" that helping the Navy to develop weapon systems would bring prestige or further the reputation of the university.

"And if it's classified research," she said, "how would anyone know about it?

"No thinking person could approve the UARC," she said.

Gary Ostrander, vice chancellor for research and graduate education, said he could not comment on the specifics of the report because although he had skimmed it yesterday, he had not read it completely through.

Ostrander said the university lawyers also will examine the report.

Concerns about the contract have been taken into consideration over the summer and will continue to be examined, he said.

"A number of these issues relate to all of the research grants that we have at this university and I would say that I believe they are being taken out of context," Ostrander said. "Different people have different interpretation on some of these things."

Because the center involves partnering with the Navy to bring in Defense Department research, Ostrander believes some people are using it to protest a growing share of military grants coming to the university.

"Folks who are against this are looking for any conceivable thing to get rid of this," he said. "They see this as an opportunity to stop that. ... That seems to be what the real issue is."

Other issues raised in the report deal with ownership of equipment bought under the center, security classification of research staff and even the possibility of mandatory drug tests on researchers working with sensitive materials.

"The contract needs to be better, more protective of faculty rights," said librarian Sara Rutter, who chaired the faculty committee that wrote the report with the help of attorneys from the university's Hawai'i Procurement Institute.

The report, which was prepared to improve discussions about the center, arrives a week before a planned vote by the university's Faculty Senate on whether to recommend it to the administration.

The Board of Regents will make a final decision on the contract, and university administrators have said a public hearing will be held first.

If established, the center would require some $3 million in start-up funds. School officials say it would bring in about $50 million in grants over its first five years of operations.

Defense Department funding at UH reached $52.3 million last year, up from $10.3 million in 2000, according to the UH Office of Research Services. Overall research contracts and grants at UH totaled almost $350 million in the last fiscal year.