The university has announced that it is to receive a £2.5 million donation from Charles Corfield, a technology start-up boss who is estimated to be worth in the region of £100 million. The money will be directed towards promoting women’s engagement in mathematics.

The Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics will receive the donation, which will fund the foundation of an endowed teaching office devoted to redressing the gender imbalance in mathematics.

Just 17 per cent of this year’s intake of freshers studying Mathematics are women, and only the Computer Science and Engineering courses have a smaller proportion of female students.

The Faculty of Mathematics has three Women’s Advisers who support female PhD students and academics facing difficulties, and in April last year received a Bronze Athena SWAN Department Award for promoting equal opportunities.

Corfield, who is behind the latest donation, graduated with a degree in Mathematics and Physics from the university in 1982, and went on to found Frame Technology Corp., which was later acquired by Adobe.

This is the second time that he has made a donation on this scale, having given £2.5 million in 1996 to fund the construction of the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. St John’s College named a court after Corfield in 2009 in recognition of his financial contributions.

Corfield’s latest gift comes as part of the university’s £2 billion fundraising drive, and was announced on Wednesday alongside benefactions of £660,000 from the Standard Bank of South Africa to provide studentships for South African postgraduates at Magdalene College, and over £2 million from the Walters Kundert Charitable Trust to fund Natural Sciences fellowships and an outreach project.