How 'Independent' should independent research be? Harvard app

[jriveracal]

Anyone else feel this is rather ambiguous?

 

"Please describe any projects that required your independent work and/or laboratories in which you have conducted independent research."

What would you say exactly qualifies as independent work?

 

[MarineBluePsy]

I always interpreted this as projects that I developed.  Meaning I had the idea, created the proposal, did most of the data collection/analysis, etc.  This doesn't have to be a huge federally funded study, but could be exploring a question using a current or archival data set in your lab.