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Philanthropy and Higher Education

Our work in this area investigates philanthropy’s impact on higher education, including support for research, institutions, and student opportunities.

Our research projects

Philanthropy and UK Higher Education

This project is focused on philanthropy and endowment building in UK higher education, using mixed methods. It will provide a sector-wide analysis (both historical and statistical) together with in-depth case-studies to enquire into the characteristics, behaviours and processes of university fundraising departments and donors (individuals, foundations and corporate.) There are two main goals: (1) to better understand the role of philanthropy in the past, present and future development of UK HE, and (2) to provide well founded guidelines on effectiveness in HE fundraising practice.


Key researchers

  • Alison Gibson
  • Charles Harvey
  • Mairi Maclean
  • Frank Mueller