Leeds University sets £100m goal as donations from ex-students pass £60m

Leeds University will announce today that its Making a World of Difference campaign to attract support from alumni has passed the £60m mark and will be extended for another four years.

The money has been raised through 15,000 donations from around the world – ranging from small offers to the largest gift of £9m, which helped to build the university’s new library.

The university said the funds support world-class research, into areas such as treatments for cancer, as well as helping young people from disadvantaged backgrounds across Yorkshire to make the most of their education.

Vice-Chancellor Sir Alan Langlands said: “Our campaign is making a crucial contribution to the university, its students and its impact on the world. We are deeply grateful for the support of all our donors, which will expand the intellectual horizons of our students, grow our research and develop our campus.”

Leeds University launched the campaign in 2010. It was the institution’s first major fundraising drive since the 1920s and was described at the time as “a leap of faith”. Now six years on from its launch, the target of £60m has been reached and the university is setting its sights on collecting £40m more and £100m in total by 2020.

The campaign has helped pay for after-school classes at two IntoUniversity learning centres in some of the most deprived communities in Leeds, in Harehills and Beeston, which work with hundreds of children from primary school upwards.

The centres aim to raise the attainment of youngsters in the inner-city areas.

A second scheme, called Reach for Excellence, has also been paid for through alumni donations, and helps 16 to 18-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds at Yorkshire schools to stay on track with their studies and aim for a place at university.

Funds raised through alumni donations are helping to support university research, including a team working on finding a revolutionary viral therapy for brain cancer.

And the most visible sign of the campaign is the new Laidlaw Library, near the university entrance on Woodhouse Lane.

The library is named after Irvine Laidlaw, who studied economics at Leeds in the 1960s and whose £9m gift for the fundraising project is the biggest ever received by the university.

His name is one of 2,300 which appear on the donor wall inside the entrance.