Dear World,
You sent us Newton. We sent you gravity.
You sent us Darwin. We sent you evolution. You sent us William and Samuel. We sent you Wordsworth and Coleridge. What will we send next? A postal test for depression? A swallowable test for cancer? A theory of everything? For eight centuries, our impact on the world has been huge. But to impact all our futures, we need your support. Yours, Cambridge.

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Yours, Cambridge

Our ideas and innovations have shaped the world.
Our campaign, 'Dear World... Yours, Cambridge', will raise £2 billion
to help us shape all our futures.

 

 
 
 
 
 
Students climbing a spiral staircase in a College

Our ambition

For 800 years, the world has invested in Cambridge and Cambridge has delivered. We gave you gravity, evolution, computers and pulsars. Next we could deliver clean energy sources, longer lives, quantum computers and parallel universes. But first we need to ask more from the world.
Read more about our ambition
 
 
 
 
 
The fundraising campaign has reached £1.08bn.

Why Cambridge?

Our Dear World, Yours Cambridge campaign for the University and Colleges was launched in October 2015 and aims to raise £2bn for research, posts and facilities. The campaign total now stands at £1.08bn.
Read more about the impact of giving to Cambridge
 
 
 
 
 
College scarves

A Collegiate University

Cambridge is a unique community of 31 Colleges, and home to more than 18,000 students. The Colleges are the home of our signature supervision system, where students are mentored by some of the world’s leading thinkers. Our 9,000 staff are spread across six schools and more than 150 departments, faculties and institutes.
Read more about our community

Focus on our aspirations

For eight centuries, Cambridge has welcomed brilliant minds, set them free to collaborate and create, sending world-changing ideas in return. But we can never say: 'our work is done'. Help us ensure that our impact on the future will be as vital as our impact on the past.

Students in front of one of our Colleges

Global talent to shape our global future: supporting graduate students

There are thousands of students out there who could make their mark on the world.
A College supervision session

World-class teaching and mentoring: supporting undergraduate students

Teaching the next generation of leaders how to think, not what to think. Here, teaching is a two-way process, revolving around an exchange of thinking and understanding.
Family check-up

Anticipating and preventing disease

New approaches to the world's most debilitating health conditions, such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
Sir David Attenborough (image by Cate Gillon)

Saving our planet's biodiversity, for the world

Creating transformational solutions to environmental challenges: a partnership between international nature conservation organisations and University researchers.
A Cambridge-Africa Programme workshop in Tanzania

Closing the research gap between Africa and the rest of the world

Supporting a new generation of outstanding researchers to create an African research culture.
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Combining efforts to fight cardiovascular and respiratory diseases

Creating Europe's largest concentration of scientists and clinicians fighting chronic diseases.
A doctor giving a patient a CT scan

Creative collaborations curing disease

As threats to health become more complex and interconnected, so too will the solutions we develop to combat them.
Super conductor

Energy: the next big discovery

Making possible a new generation of discoveries that provide affordable, clean energy for everyone on the planet for generations to come.

View all aspirations

Gift announcements

Cambridge owes its world-leading excellence in research and teaching to the generosity of its supporters. Our history is synonymous with a history of far-sighted benefaction, and the same is as true today as it has ever been.

Gift announcement

New Cambridge institute to tackle policy challenges in our age of disruption

The Bennett Institute for Public Policy will address emerging global patterns of inequality and social unrest by offering a unique combination of deep research, high-level training and effective policy engagement. 
Gift announcement

Unique science for health policy think-tank joins University of Cambridge

A leading multidisciplinary think tank, the PHG Foundation, will become part of the University of Cambridge from 1 April this year, with a focus on making science work for health. This has been made possible by a philanthropic gift from the Hong Kong-based Hatton Trust, which has recognised the University’s global eminence in science, medicine and the humanities alongside the pioneering policy development work of the Foundation.

Read more gift announcements

Impact of giving

Philanthropic giving is at the heart of the success of the Collegiate University, enabling us to make discoveries that change the world and to ensure that our students receive an unrivalled education.

Philomathia Africa Programme gift agreement signing in Trinity Hall on 4 February 2018. Image by Stephen Bond Photography
Philanthropic impact story

Cambridge and the Philomathia Foundation launch new Africa programme

A programme launched jointly by the University, Trinity Hall and the Philomathia Foundation will create new research and teaching collaborations with African universities, scholars and students in the social sciences to help seek solutions to some of the world’s most intractable challenges.
Professor Paul Lane (image courtesy of the REAL Project, Uppsala University)
Philanthropic impact story

Expanding our understanding of humanity's deep history across Africa

Professor Paul Lane has been appointed as the inaugural Jennifer Ward Oppenheimer Professor of the Deep History and Archaeology of Africa at the University.

Read more impact stories