The King’s Campaign was publicly launched in 2018 to raise £100 million to shape the next stage in the College’s future. Thanks to the generosity of our alumni and supporters, a total of £75 million has now been reached, helping King’s encourage and support more of the most talented students from the greatest range of under-represented backgrounds, deliver world-class teaching and research, and protect and enhance the College’s unique heritage.
Gifts are funding new undergraduate bursaries and graduate studentships, new access and outreach initiatives and vital student welfare and mental health support, as well as high impact research and new academic posts, new student accommodation and restoration and renovation projects in the College’s historic buildings.
Over 58% of what has been raised to date has been given to student support. At the launch of the Campaign a £33 million gift from a King’s alumnus was announced, establishing the College’s transformative Student Access and Support Initiative to be a catalyst for key areas of permanent change.
In the past academic year King’s welcomed a record number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Students who might otherwise have struggled to make their A-level offers benefitted from a unique post-offer tutoring scheme, and last autumn a new Bridging Programme helped prepare 16 offer holders from traditionally low attainment schools for life and study at Cambridge. This year King’s is offering mentoring and A-level tutoring to 26 offer holders, and 12 candidates have been put forward for the 2021 Bridging Programme.
Graduate students are the powerhouse without whose fresh thinking and brilliant minds the University’s ground-breaking research would not happen, but securing funding for further studies is often precarious, difficult and slow. Since the start of the Campaign donations to support graduate students at King’s have enabled nine new graduate studentships to be funded; and the total value of endowed funding available has grown by £7 million.
Gifts have also added to the College’s teaching and research capacity, with nine academic posts funded since the start of the Campaign. The most recent is a new Research Fellowship in egalitarian economics, announced in April.
The Provost, Professor Michael Proctor, said of the Campaign:
The success of the King’s Campaign reflects the extraordinary support of so many alumni, donors and friends to the College, who have given not only financially but also of their time, help and commitment. Thanks to this we are transforming student access, and support for our students during their time at Cambridge, whether undergraduate or graduate. We’re enhancing the world-class teaching and research for which we are renowned, and ensuring that we can protect and enhance the wonderful historic buildings in our care. We have reached three-quarters of our targeted amount for the Campaign, and I am deeply grateful to all those who have contributed so generously to get us to this point.
For more information about the King’s Campaign and its aims, please click here.
