One of the world’s richest men is to fund a major new scholarship scheme at the University of Oxford to help tackle “humanity’s most serious problems”.
Larry Ellison, the founder of software giant Oracle whose fortune is estimated at $135 billion (£110 billion), will fund about 20 candidates from across the world each year as part of a massive research investment at the leading UK university, it was announced on 12 October.
Scholarships will “fund all course fees” for the “year-round programme” at Oxford, and there will be a “generous stipend to cover things such as travel, programming, accommodation and living expenses”, in addition to “paid summer internships” from October 2025, according to the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), the charitable foundation that is setting up an Oxford campus in addition to its Los Angeles headquarters.
The Norman Foster-designed campus – which incorporates more than 30,000 square metres of research laboratory space, a cancer patient clinic and education spaces, and is to be located on the Oxford Science Park and parts of the estate belonging to the former Littlemore hospital – is set to be completed by 2026.
