The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents will have an essential duty to perform when it meets to discuss the latest version of the university-affiliated research center proposal, now being called the Applied Research Laboratory.

The discussion thus far of the planned research partnership between UH and the Navy has polarized the university community. Proponents point to the potential of $50 million in research funds coming to the university over a five-year term; opponents mistrust the secrecy likely to cloak the studies and the spending of federal dollars.

Denise Konan, who served as interim Manoa chancellor before the hiring of Virginia Hinshaw, recommended against the contract on the basis of a faculty survey and cost-benefit analysis. Konan concluded that relatively few campus researchers had an interest in pursuing UARC projects, and so the center seemed a bad fit for Manoa.

UH officials decided that the administration of the UARC would be sited off campus and that the research initiative should be a UH system project, not under Manoa.

However, this does not negate the fact that most of the researchers are based at the flagship campus, so the regents must take Konan's analysis into account.

The regents should consider faculty opinions about the current contract, in which classified research projects will be barred for a three-year trial period. Opponents point to a clause giving the Navy the right to approve all release of information; they say it's a cloaking device that's almost as impervious as an official "classified" status.

Regents must find out more precisely how requests for information will be handled and ensure proper oversight and accountability.

All of this information can be factored into the analysis, answering the basic question: Can the work be done with enough transparency that it becomes a benefit to the UH, rather than a liability? With the right safeguards, it should be worth at least this three-year trial.

But the regents owe the community more than a rubber-stamp review. They are as accountable as anyone.