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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
 
 
 
 
 
Sir James Dyson. Image courtesy of the James Dyson Foundation

Why Cambridge?

Because the best invention to come out of Cambridge is Cambridge itself. This University is a machine for thinking. Our collegiate structure, human scale and cross-disciplinary approach enables great minds to become more than the sum of their parts. It has led to vital breakthroughs. It can lead to more.
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.

A College supervision session

World-class teaching and mentoring

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.
A Red-Eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) sitting on a vine with green plants in the background

Saving our planet's biodiversity, for the world

Creating transformational solutions to environmental challenges: a partnership between international nature conservation organisations and University researchers.
Conservators Rebecca Goldie, Mary French, and Emma Nichols examine a Lewis-Gibson fragment

Preserving cultural heritage

Home to many of the world’s most significant collections, Cambridge is driving efforts to appreciate, understand and conserve many more beyond its borders.
Two women walking in the countryside

Mental health: treating molecule and mind together

Pigeon-holing mental illness as ‘psychiatric’ means patients receive inadequate treatment. We want to change that.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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

Record gift from estate of sound pioneer Ray Dolby

Multi-million pound legacy to create a new 'Ray and Dagmar Dolby Court' at Pembroke College
Gift announcement

The future of intelligence: Cambridge University launches new centre to study AI and the future of humanity

The University of Cambridge is launching a new research centre, thanks to a £10 million grant from the Leverhulme Trust, to explore the opportunities and challenges to humanity from the development of artificial intelligence. 

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 received an unrivalled education.

Members of St Catharine's College Choir
Philanthropic impact story

Cambridge's gifts to the world

A look at some of the things Cambridge has brought the world, ahead of Christmas 2015
The new Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Addenbrooke's hospital
Philanthropic impact story

Increasing the number of clinical trials to speed up development of new medical treatments

At any one time, more than 1000 clinical trials are being conducted across the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, the largest gathering of clinical, pharmaceutical and biomedical research specialists in Europe. Clinical trials are a crucial step in the design of new medicines and medical devices – translating an idea that started in a research laboratory into a new treatment for patients.