A two-year Congressionally mandated assessment of financial threats to the nation's research universities ended on Thursday with the offer of a grand bargain: Cut costs and form more partnerships with communities and industry, and expect increased revenues and fewer regulations. A report on the study, coordinated by the National Research Council at the request of four Democratic and Republican lawmakers, begins by affirming a widespread sense that years of steep budget cuts at the state and federal levels are endangering American research universities' global pre-eminence. Its authors, a 22-member panel of university and business leaders, propose averting such a disaster through a set of 10 recommendations describing steps to be taken together by the universities, governments, and industry. For universities, the recommendations include raising graduation rates among science and engineering majors and halting runaway growth in costs by keeping annual budget increases to no greater than the nation's overall inflation rate. States would be expected to fully reverse cuts in support to higher education that have ranged from 25 percent to 50 percent in recent years. However, the long-awaited report's few concrete recommendations to bolster the institutions may not always be to their liking.