FUNDING TO UNIVERSITIES BY THE WOLFSON FOUNDATION

Established in 1955, the Wolfson Trust was established by British retailer Sir Isaac Wolfson, his wife and their son.  It has a long history of supporting universities. An early example was the donation of £250,000 to the University of London in 1958 to provide a new hall of residence for Commonwealth students. Even before the foundation, the Wolfson family had been generous supporters of higher education, donating £100,000 to the Weizmann Institute in Israel in 1950.

Today the foundation has assets of £850m, and disburses between £30-35m annually. It is a strong supporter of science and innovation as well as the arts. It is notable for its funding of infrastructure.

• Our analysis of its giving between 2014-18 shows that the Wolfson Foundation awards around 40% of its total giving annually to universities and higher education institutions, primarily in the UK.

• In the last five reported years it has given £62.7m in grants to 71 universities and higher education institutions. This includes nine OxBridge colleges.

• UK universities are by far the biggest beneficiaries. 64 British universities received 90% of Wolfson Foundation university giving, totalling £56.3m.

• The University of Oxford – and four of its colleges - received the largest sum from the Foundation (£5.0m), followed by University College, London (£4.3m). In third place is Cambridge University – and five constituent colleges – which received £3.3m ($11.9m).

• The top 10 university beneficiaries – all except one are British – received 46% of Wolfson Foundation giving (£29.1m).

• Israel is the preferred region for international giving.  10% of its university giving went to Israel’s six principal universities.

• The Weizmann Institute – with which the Wolfson family has a long association – was the the largest international beneficiary receiving £2.5m between 2014-18.  It also received the largest single donation - £1.5m - to an overseas university in 2014 for its Israel National Center for Personalised Medicine.

• The University of Cape Town has received two donations between 2014-18 amounting to £450k.  The largest donation was a contribution to the UCT’s Neurosciences Institute.

• The four largest individual donations all relate to university infrastructure developments.