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Oxford University embarks on record-breaking effort

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 6 Jun 2008

Oxford University has launched a campaign to raise £1.25bn, the largest sum ever sought by a European academic institution, to fund expansion projects and compete better internationally.

In the face of growing competition from universities abroad, particularly well-funded American Ivy League colleges, the university argues that the effort is necessary to ensure it remains competitive into the future.

The Campaign for the University of Oxford, aimed at the institution’s elite alumni, is spearheaded by some of the university’s most famous former students including Michael Palin, Richard Dawkins and senior Conservative Party figures including leader David Cameron.

Oxford had endowments totalling £3.4bn in the year ending July 2007.

Nearly half-way there 

The £1.25bn, £575m of which has already been donated by philanthropists, will go to fund a variety of improvements and initiatives at the university. A proportion of the money will also go towards attracting top academic staff and subsidising students from low-income backgrounds.

The announcement has been welcomed by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills. A spokesman for the department said: “It is right that universities seek to raise funds through their own initiatives.”

He added that Oxford’s move reflected global trends noted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which found that universities were attracting a greater proportion of funding from non-public sources, while not suffering a decline in public funding.

Yet, even with the hoped-for funding boost, Oxford will still lag behind its chief American rival, Harvard University, which received a total of $34.9bn (£17.7bn) worth of endowments in the year ending 2006 alone.

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