The ‘Yours, Cambridge’ fundraising campaign, which launched last weekend, has received a $25 million donation from two alumni. The gift will fund a new partnership to work towards a resilient and inclusive global economy.

The University and Queens’ College have announced that the $25 million gift, from Mohamed A. El-Erian and Jamie Walters, will support the work of both the College and the University’s Faculty of Economics by establishing the El-Erian Institute for Human Behaviour and Economic Policy, as well as funding studentships, research and a professorship at Queens’.

Dr El-Erian is co-Chair of the £2 billion campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge, which has raised £538 million so far. The donors have expressed their “delight that [they] can contribute to expanding access to high-quality learning and research, as well as its reach and impact.”

The Institute aims to narrow the gap between economic policy and how people actually make decisions and respond, as opposed to how theorists believe they should. Working alongside academics, practitioners and researchers, the Institute will adopt a multidisciplinary approach, benefiting from Cambridge’s expertise in economics, finance and behavioural science, as well as in neuroscience and psychology. The work is seen as more important now than ever, in the context of financial crises and growing inequalities all over the world, and envisages an improved quality of life for all.

The gift will also provide a Fellowship at Queens’, for the Chair of the El-Erian Institute, as well as linked PhD studentships at the College and an outreach fund.

The Cambridge Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, has expressed his delight at the donors’ “strong commitment” to Cambridge.
“This gift will help us support the students and create the understanding we need to build a resilient economy in the globalised era” said Borysiewicz.

El-Erian graduated from Queens’ in 1980 with a first-class honours degree in Economics. He is now an Honorary Fellow of the College, serving chair of President Obama’s Global Development Council, chief economic advisor at Allianz, and the former CEO and Co-Chief Investment Officer of Pacific Management Company (PIMCO).

El-Erian and Walters’ donation comes after a year of careful planning of the unique collaboration between the donors, Queens’ and the Faculty of Economics. In forging a partnership between a Cambridge College and a Cambridge Faculty, Lord Eatwell, President of Queens’ College, says El-Erian “has stimulated the establishment of new college-university relationships – a new way forward for the collegiate university.”

However, the promotional video for the ‘Yours, Cambridge’ campaign, featuring the Fitzwilliam College alumnus David Starkey, has drawn criticism from CUSU’s BME Campaign for purportedly “racist” remarks Starkey has made in the past.

The BME Campaign, in a statement released online, claimed that Dr Starkey is “not a suitable representative for a university that should be welcoming students from diverse racial, social and economic backgrounds” for such a promotional video.