Imperial College London has received its largest donation of £40m from the philanthropist Michael Uren and his foundation.

The money will be used to build the Michael Uren Biomedical Engineering Hub, a building at Imperial West, the College's new 25-acre research and innovation campus.

Sir Keith O’Nions, president of Imperial College London, said: “It will create a wholly new building and set of facilities for engineers and medics to come together and make new discoveries and innovations on an unparalleled scale. It provides enormous impetus to the development of Imperial West as an innovation district.”

Uren graduated in 1943 with a degree in mechanical engineering and founded the cement manufacturer Civil and Marine Ltd and his charitable foundation was set up in 2002.

He said: “What I find so exciting about this project is that here is Imperial building one of the biggest research centres in the world within a few miles of the City of London, which itself has become the biggest financial centre in the world today. By putting the two together, what is quite clear is that the investment world will be watching for, and waiting for, the research and inventions which will create tomorrow's great companies.”

Last September Oxford University received a £75m donation to its historical Rhodes scholarship, part of which is to help it expand the programme’s international reach.

In June’s issue of Fundraising magazine Jenna Pudelek investigates the rise of university fundraising departments and asks what lessons charities can learn from them.