剑桥大学(University of Cambridge;勋衔:Cantab)，坐落于英国剑桥郡，是一所公立研究型大学，采用传统学院制。 是罗素大学集团、金三角名校、Doxbridge、G5成员。 剑桥大学是英语世界中第二古老的大学，前身是一个于1209年成立的学者协会。
剑桥大学是英国罗素大学集团、全球大学高研院联盟、金三角名校、国际应用科技开发协作网及剑桥大学医疗伙伴联盟成员 ，衍育了科技聚集地"硅沼(Silicon Fen)"。 设八座文理博物馆，馆藏逾1500万册的图书馆系统及全球历史悠久的出版社--剑桥大学出版社。
2021-22年度位居THE WORLD大学排名第5 、QS世界大学排名第3 、U.S. News世界大学排名第8 、软科世界大学学术排名第3 。
剑桥大学实际上只是一个组织松散的学院联合体，各学院高度自治，但是都遵守统一的剑桥大学章程，该章程是由大学的立法机构起草通过的，每年还会修订。剑桥大学只负责考试与学位颁发，而招收学生的具体标准则由各学院自行决定，并自行招生。剑桥的31所学院错落有致地分布在只有10万人左右的小镇里。这些学院建于不同的时代，极早的已有七、八百年历史了。就像它们的建筑一样各具特色。
Colleges（学院）
大学与学院虽相辅相成，却是不同的实体，在经济上也是独立的。大学是公有制，由政府拨款，而学院则为私有，自谋生路，自负盈亏。大学负责研究生的，而学院则负责本科生的招生，数量则由大学统一规划。所有学生的教学是由大学负责的，而学院负责学生的生活和本科生的业余辅导。每年年底，大学按照各学院本科生的成绩，按一定规则打分，把学院排队，促使学院之间相互竞争。大学内部管理由各个部门独立进行，少数的对外事务由大学中央机构委派代表处理。
The Chancellor（校长）
剑桥大学的校长是由学校参议院选举产生的，一般都由社会上受人尊敬、有名望的人担任。校长一职是象征性的，校长很少介入大学事务，一般只负责颁发荣誉学位和出席学校的各种庆典等，虽然他也可以给副校长和大学管理人员提供建议。现任校长是大卫·塞恩斯伯里（又称：特维尔的塞恩斯伯里男爵）。
The Vice-Chancellor（副校长）
副校长是大学实质的学术和行政首脑，任期为7年。现任（第346任）副校监是斯蒂芬·杜普教授 。
The Regent House（摄政机关）
摄政院是大学的管理机关，拥有选举权，可以制订或修改学校规章、章程，投票任命副校长、大学会议成员、颁发学位和荣誉学位。成员超3800名，包括大学管理人员、校长和研究员（Fellow）。
The Senate（参议院，或上院）
参议院选举大学的高级管理人员，由摄政机关的全部成员，以及剑桥博士、硕士学位获得者组成。
The Council（委员会，或下院）
委员会是政策制定和执行机构，定期向摄政院汇报工作、报告大学普遍关注的问题，并通过大学官方杂志将问题公布。
委员会担负施政的责任，它为大学明确使命，做好规划并管理资源。它还处理大学和学院之间的关系。
委员会由16名学术成员，4名外部成员和3名学生成员组成。副校长任委员会主席。
决策规则
决策的制定分两种：首先是较简单、意见同意的动议（如任命校长和大学人员），一般都由大学会议提出，发表在剑桥校刊上发表公告，如果在10天内没有一定数目的摄政院成员反对，就算通过。而如果是由大学会议以外人士提出的比较复杂、重大的动议，则也是由提案人先将动议发表在校刊上，然后举行公开辩论，在提案人考虑过所有意见后，建议摄政院修改提案，然后再发表在校刊上，如10天内无一定数目的摄政院成员反对就算通过。但如果有一定数量的成员认为有必要，则摄政院需举行投票。投票是通过邮寄方式完成的。当摄政院召开会议时由校长主持，如果校长不在则由副校长主持，如副校长也缺席则由其指定的某一学院院长主持。一般都不必开会就可解决，但每年6月份必须召开4次会议，核准学位的颁发。
The University of Cambridge is a collegiate research university in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third-oldest surviving university. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge.
Cambridge is ranked among the most prestigious universities in the world and currently sits as the world's second best university, and the best in Europe, according the QS World University Rankings. Cambridge has won more Nobel Prizes than any other institution with 121 Nobel laureates. The University's notable alumni and faculty also include 11 Fields Medalists, 7 Turing Award winners, 47 heads of state and 14 British prime ministers. As of 2016, University alumni had won 194 Olympic medals.
Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 semi-autonomous constituent colleges and over 150 academic departments, faculties and other institutions organised into six schools. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. The university does not have a main campus, and its colleges and central facilities are scattered throughout the city. Undergraduate teaching at Cambridge centres on weekly small-group supervisions in the colleges in groups of typically 1–4
students. This intensive method of teaching is widely considered the 'jewel in the crown' of an Oxbridge undergraduate education. In addition, lectures, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further supervisions are provided by the central university faculties and departments, while postgraduate teaching is also predominantly provided centrally. Degrees are conferred by the university, not the colleges.
By both endowment size and material consolidated assets, Cambridge is the wealthiest university in Europe. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2019, the central university, excluding colleges, had a total income of ?2.192 billion, of which ?592.4 million was from research grants and contracts. At the end of the same financial year, the central university and colleges together possessed a combined endowment of over ?7.1 billion and overall consolidated net assets (excluding 'immaterial' historical assets) of over ?12.5 billion. Cambridge University Press & Assessment combines the oldest university press in the world with one of the world's leading examining bodies, providing assessment to over eight million learners globally every year and reaching some fifty million learners, teachers and researchers monthly. The university also operates eight cultural and scientific museums, including the Fitzwilliam Museum, as well as a botanic garden. Cambridge's libraries, of which there are over 100, hold a total of around 16 million books, around nine million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal deposit library. The university is home to, but independent of, the Cambridge Union – the world's oldest debating society. The university is closely linked to the development of the high-tech business cluster known as 'Silicon Fen', the largest technology cluster in Europe. It is the central member of Cambridge University Health Partners, an academic health science centre based around the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.
History
See also: Timeline of Cambridge
By the late 12th century, the Cambridge area already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. However, it was an incident at Oxford which is most likely to have led to the establishment of the university: three Oxford scholars were hanged by the town authorities for the death of a woman, without consulting the ecclesiastical authorities, who would normally take precedence (and pardon the scholars) in such a case, but were at that time in conflict with King John. Fearing more violence from the townsfolk, scholars from the University of Oxford started to move away to cities such as Paris, Reading, and Cambridge. Subsequently, enough scholars remained in Cambridge to form the nucleus of a new university when it had become safe enough for academia to resume at Oxford. In order to claim precedence, it is common for Cambridge to trace its founding to the 1231 charter from Henry?III granting it the right to discipline its own members (ius non-trahi extra) and an exemption from some taxes; Oxford was not granted similar rights until 1248.
A bull in 1233 from Pope Gregory IX gave graduates from Cambridge the right to teach "everywhere in Christendom". After Cambridge was described as a studium generale in a letter from Pope Nicholas IV in 1290, and confirmed as such in a bull by Pope John XXII in 1318, it became common for researchers from other European medieval universities to visit Cambridge to study or to give lecture courses.
Foundation of the colleges
The colleges at the University of Cambridge were originally an incidental feature of the system. No college is as old as the university itself. The colleges were endowed fellowships of scholars. There were also institutions without endowments, called hostels. The hostels were gradual
ly absorbed by the colleges over the centuries, but they have left some traces, such as the name of Garret Hostel Lane.
Hugh Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, Cambridge's first college, in 1284. Many colleges were founded during the 14th and 15th centuries, but colleges continued to be established until modern times, although there was a gap of 204 years between the founding of Sidney Sussex in 1596 and that of Downing in 1800. The most recently established college is Robinson, built in the late 1970s. However, Homerton College only achieved full university college status in March 2010, making it the newest full college (it was previously an "Approved Society" affiliated with the university).
In medieval times, many colleges were founded so that their members would pray for the souls of the founders, and were often associated with chapels or abbeys. The colleges' focus changed in 1536 with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Henry VIII ordered the university to disband its Faculty of Canon Law and to stop teaching "scholastic philosophy". In response, colleges changed their curricula away from canon law, and towards the classics, the Bible, and mathematics.
Nearly a century later, the university was at the centre of a Protestant schism. Many nobles, intellectuals and even commoners saw the ways of the Church of England as too similar to the Catholic Church, and felt that it was used by the Crown to usurp the rightful powers of the counties. East Anglia was the centre of what became the Puritan movement. In Cambridge, the movement was particularly strong at Emmanuel, St Catharine's Hall, Sidney Sussex and Christ's College. They produced many "non-conformist" graduates who greatly influenced, by social position or preaching, some 20,000 Puritans who left for New England and especially the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Great Migration decade of the 1630s. Oliver Cromwell, Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War and head of the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), attended Sidney Sussex.
Mathematics and mathematical physics
Examination in mathematics was once compulsory for all undergradu
ates studying for the Bachelor of Arts degree, the main first degree at Cambridge in both arts and sciences. From the time of Isaac Newton in the later 17th century until the mid-19th century, the university maintained an especially strong emphasis on applied mathematics, particularly mathematical physics. The exam is known as a Tripos. Students awarded first-class honours after completing the mathematics Tripos are termed wranglers, and the top student among them is the Senior Wrangler. The Cambridge Mathematical Tripos is competitive and has helped produce some of the most famous names in British science, including James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Lord Rayleigh. However, some famous students, such as G. H. Hardy, disliked the system, feeling that people were too interested in accumulating marks in exams and not interested in the subject itself.
Pure mathematics at Cambridge in the 19th century achieved great things, but also missed out on substantial developments in French and German mathematics. Pure mathematical research at Cambridge finally reached the highest international standard in the early 20th century, thanks above all to G. H. Hardy,
his collaborator J. E. Littlewood and Srinivasa Ramanujan. In geometry, W. V. D. Hodge brought Cambridge onto the international mainstream in the 1930s.
Although diversified in its research and teaching interests, Cambridge today maintains its strength in mathematics. Cambridge alumni have won six Fields Medals and one Abel Prize for mathematics, while individuals representing Cambridge have won four Fields Medals.
Modern period
After the Cambridge University Act 1856 formalised the organisational structure of the university, the study of many new subjects was introduced, such as theology, history and modern languages. Resources necessary for new courses in the arts, architecture and archaeology were donated by Viscount Fitzwilliam, of Trinity College, who also founded the Fitzwilliam Museum. In 1847, Prince Albert was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge after a close contest with the Earl of Powis. Albert used his position as Chancellor to campaign successfully for reformed and more modern university curricula, expanding the subjects taught beyond the traditional mathematics and classics to include modern history and the natural sciences. Between 1896 and 1902, Downing College sold part of its land to build the
Downing Site, with new scientific laboratories for anatomy, genetics and Earth sciences. During the same period, the New Museums Site was erected, including the Cavendish Laboratory, which has since moved to the West Cambridge Site, and other departments for chemistry and medicine.The University of Cambridge began to award PhD degrees in the first third of the 20th century. The first Cambridge PhD in mathematics was awarded in 1924.
In the First World War, 13,878 members of the university served and 2,470 were killed. Teaching, and the fees it earned, came almost to a stop and severe financial difficulties followed. As a consequence the university first received systematic state support in 1919, and a Royal Commission appointed in 1920 recommended that the university (but not the colleges) should receive an annual grant. Following the Second World War, the university saw a rapid expansion of student numbers and available places; this was partly due to the success and popularity gained by many Cambridge scientists.
Parliamentary representation
Main article: University of Cambridge (UK Parliament constituency)
The university was one of only two universities to hold parliamentary seats in the Parliament of England and was later one of eight represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was created by a Royal Charter of 1603 and returned two members of parliament until 1950, when it was abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1948.
The constituency was not a geographical area. Its electorate consisted of the graduates of the university. Before 1918 the franchise was restricted to male graduates with a doctorate or MA degree.
Women's education
For its first several centuries only male students were enrolled into the university. The first colleges for women were Girton College (founded by Emily Davies) in 1869 and Newnham College in 1872 (founded by Anne Clough and Henry Sidgwick), followed by Hughes Hall in 1885 (founded by Elizabeth Phillips Hughes as the Cambridge Teaching Colle
ge for Women), Murray Edwards College (founded by Rosemary Murray as New Hall) in 1954, and Lucy Cavendish College in 1965. The first women students were examined in 1882 but attempts to make women full members of the university did not succeed until 1948. Women were allowed to study courses, sit examinations, and have their results recorded from 1881; for a brief period after the turn of the twentieth century, this allowed the "steamboat ladies" to receive ad eundem degrees from the University of Dublin.
From 1921 women were awarded diplomas which "conferred the Title of the Degree of Bachelor of Arts". As they were not "admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts" they were excluded from the governing of the university. Since students must belong to a college, and since established colleges remained closed to women, women found admissions restricted to colleges established only for women. Darwin College, the first wholly graduate college of the university, matriculated both men and women students from its inception in 1964 – and elected a mixed fellowship. Of the undergraduate colleges, starting with Churchill, Clare and King's Colleges, the former men's colleges began to admit women between 1972 and 1988. Of the female-only colleges, Girton began to admit male students from 1979, and Lucy Cavendish from 2021, but the other female-only colleges did not do likewise. As a result of St Hilda's College, Oxford, ending its ban on male students in 2008, Cambridge is now the only remaining United Kingdom university with female-only colleges (Newnham and Murray Edwards). In the academic year 2019–2020, the university's student sex ratio, including post-graduates, was male 53%: female 47%.
Myths, legends and traditions
Main article: University of Cambridge legends
See also: Category:Terminology of the University of Cambridge
As an institution with such a long history, the university has developed a large number of myths and legends. The vast majority of these are untrue, but have been propagated nonetheless by generations of students and tour guides.
A discontinued tradition is that of the wooden spoon, the 'prize' awarded to the student with the lowest passing honours grade in the final examinations of the Mathematical Tripos. The last of these spoons was awarded in 1909 to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John's College. It was over one metre in length and had an oar blade for a handle. It can now be seen outside the Senior Combination Room of St John's. Since 1908, examination results have been published alphabetically within class rather than in strict order of merit. This made it harder to ascertain who was "entitled" to the spoon (unless there was only one person in the third class), and so the practice was abandoned.
Each Christmas Eve, BBC radio and television broadcasts The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. The radio broadcast has been a national Christmas tradition since it was first transmitted in 1928 (though the festival has existed since 1918). The radio broadcast is carried worldwide by the BBC World Service and is also syndicated to hundreds of radio stations in the US. The first television broadcast of the festival was in 1954.
Locations and buildings
Buildings
The university occupies a central location within the city of Cambridge, with the students taking up a significant proportion (nearly 20%) of the town's population and heavily affecting the age structure. Most of the older colleges are situated nearby the city centre and river Cam, along which it is traditional to punt to appreciate the buildings and surroundings.
Examples of notable buildings include King's College Chapel, the history faculty building designed by James Stirling; and the Cripps Building at St John's College. The brickwork of several of the colleges is also notable: Queens' College contains "some of the earliest patterned brickwork in the country" and the brick walls of St John's College provide examples of English bond, Flemish bond and Running bond.
Sites
The university is divided into several sites where the different departments are placed. The main ones are:
· Addenbrooke's
· Downing Site
· Madingley/Girton
· New Museums Site
· Old Addenbroke's
· Old Schools
· Silver Street/Mill Lane
· Sidgwick Site
· West Cambridge
· North West Cambridge Development
The university's School of Clinical Medicine is based in Addenbrooke's Hospital where students in medicine undergo their three-year clinical placement period after obtaining their BA degree, while the West Cambridge site is undergoing a major expansion and will host a new sports development. In addition, the Judge Business School, situated on Trumpington Street, provides management education courses since 1990 and is consistently ranked within the top 20 business schools globally by the Financial Times.
Given that the sites are in relative close proximity to each other and the area around Cambridge is reasonably flat, one of the favourite modes of transport for students is the bicycle: a fifth of the journeys in the city are made by bike, a figure enhanced by the fact that students are not permitted to hold car park permits, except under special circumstances.
'Town and gown'
Main article: Town and gown
The relationship between the university and the city has not always been positive. The phrase town and gown is employed to differentiate inhabitants of Cambridge from students at the university, who historically wore academical dress. There are many stories of ferocious rivalry between the two categories. During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, strong clashes brought about attacks and looting of university properties while locals contested the privileges granted by the government to the academic staff, the university's ledgers being burned in Market Square to the rallying cry "Away with the learning of clerks, away with it!". Following these events, the Chancellor was given special powers allowing him to prosecute the criminals and re-establish order in the city. Attempts to reconcile the two groups followed over time, and in the 16th century agreements were signed to improve the quality of streets and student accommodation around the city. However, this was followed by new confrontations when the plague hit Cambridge in 1630 and colleges refused to help those affected by the disease by locking their sites.
Such conflicts have disappeared. The university provides employment and an increased wealth in the area. The enormous growth in the number of high-tech, biotech, providers of services and related firms situated near Cambridge has been termed the Cambridge Phenomenon: the addition of 1,500 new, registered companies and as many as 40,000 jobs between 1960 and 2010 has been directly related to the presence of the university as a source of employment for Cambridge residents.
Organisation and administration
See also: List of Institutions of the University of Cambridge
Cambridge is a collegiate university, meaning that it is made up of self-governing and independent colleges, each with its own property and income. Most colleges bring together academics and students from a broad range of disciplines, and within each faculty, school or department within the university, academics from many different colleges are present.
The faculties are responsible for ensuring that lectures are given, arranging seminars, performing research and determining the syllabi for teaching, overseen by the General Board. Together with the central administration headed by the Vice-Chancellor, they make up the entire Cambridge University. Facilities such as libraries are provided on all these levels: by the university (the Cambridge University Library), by the Faculties (Faculty libraries such as the Squire Law Library), and by the individual colleges (all of which maintain a multi-discipline library, generally aimed mainly at their undergraduates).
Legally, the university is an exempt charity and a common law corporation with the corporate title "The Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Cambridge".
Colleges
Main article: Colleges of the University of Cambridge
The colleges are self-governing institutions with their own endowments and property, founded as integral parts of the university. All students and most academics are attached to a college. Their importance lies in the housing, welfare, social functions, and undergraduate teaching they provide. All faculties, departments, research centres, and laboratories belong to the university, which arranges lectures and awards degrees, but undergraduates receive their supervisions—small-group teaching sessions, often with just one student—within the colleges (though in many cases students go to other colleges for supervision if the teaching fellows at their college do not specialise in the areas concerned). Each college appoints its own teaching staff and fellows, who are also members of a university department. The colleges also decide which undergraduates to admit to the university, in accordance with university regulations.
Cambridge has 31 colleges, of which two, Murray Edwards and Newnham, admit women only. The other colleges are mixed, though most were originally all-male. Darwin was the first college to admit both men and women, while Churchill, Clare, and King's were the first previously all-male colleges to admit female undergraduates, in 1972. Magdalene became the last all-male college to accept women, in 1988. Clare Hall and Darwin admit only postgraduates, and Hughes Hall, St Edmund's and Wolfson admit only mature (i.e. 21 years or older on date of matriculation) students, encompassing both undergraduate and graduate students. Lucy Cavendish, which was previously a women-only mature college, announced that they would admit men and women from the age of 18 from 2021 onwards. All other colleges admit both undergraduate and postgraduate students with no age restrictions.
Colleges are not required to admit students in all subjects, with some colleges choosing not to offer subjects such as architecture, history of art or theology, but most offer close to the complete range. Some colleges maintain a bias towards certain subjects, for example with Churchill leaning towards the sciences and engineering, while others such as St Catharine's aim for a balanced intake. Others maintain much more informal reputations, such as for the students of King's to hold left-wing political views, or Robin
son's and Churchill's attempts to minimise their environmental impact.
Costs to students (accommodation and food prices) vary considerably from college to college. Similarly, college expenditure on student education also varies widely between individual colleges.
There are also several theological colleges in Cambridge, separate from Cambridge University, including Westcott House, Westminster College and Ridley Hall Theological College, that are, to a lesser degree, affiliated to the university and are members of the Cambridge Theological Federation.
Schools, faculties and departments
Main article: List of institutions of the University of Cambridge §?Schools, Faculties, and Departments
In addition to the 31 colleges, the university is made up of over 150 departments, faculties, schools, syndicates and other institutions. Members of these are usually also members of one of the colleges and responsibility for running the entire academic programme of the university is divided among them.
The university also has a department dedicated to providing continuing education, the Institute of Continuing Education, which is primarily based in Madingley Hall, a 16th-century manor house in Cambridgeshire. Its award-bearing programmes range from Undergraduate Certificates through to part-time master's degrees.
A "School" in the University of Cambridge is a broad administrative grouping of related faculties and other units. Each has an elected supervisory body—the "Council" of the school—comprising representatives of the constituent bodies. There are six schools:
· Arts and Humanities
· Biological Sciences
· Clinical Medicine
· Humanities and Social Sciences
· Physical Sciences
· Technology
Teaching and research in Cambridge is organised by faculties. The faculties have different organisational sub-structures which partly reflect their history and partly their operational needs, which may include a number of departments and other institutions. In addition, a small number of bodies called 'Syndicates' have responsibilities for teaching and research, e.g. Cambridge Assessment, the University Press, and the University Library.
Central administration
Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor
See also: List of Vice-Chancellors of the University of Cambridge and List of Chancellors of the University of Cambridge
The office of Chancellor of the university, for which there are no term limits, is mainly ceremonial and is held by David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, following the retirement of the Duke of Edinburgh on his 90th birthday in June 2011. Lord Sainsbury was nominated by the official Nomination Board to succeed him, and Abdul Arain, owner of a local grocery store, Brian Blessed and Michael Mansfield were also nominated. The election took place on 14 and 15 October 2011. David Sainsbury won the election taking 2,893 of the 5,888 votes cast, winning on the first count.
The current Vice-Chancellor is Stephen Toope.[86] While the Chancellor's office is ceremonial, the Vice-Chancellor is the de facto principal administrative officer of the university. The university's internal governance is carried out almost entirely by its own members, with very little external representation on its governing body, the Regent House (though there is external representation on the Audit Committee, and there are four external members on the University's Council, who are the only external members of the Regent House).
Senate and the Regent House
The Senate consists of all holders of the MA degree or higher degrees. It elects the Chancellor and the High Steward, and elected two members of the House of Commons until the Cambridge University constituency was abolished in 1950. Prior to 1926, it was the university's governing body, fulfilling the functions that the Regent House fulfils today. The Regent House is the university's governing body, a direct democracy comprising all resident senior members of the university and the colleges, together with the Chancellor, the High Steward, the Deputy High Steward, and the Commissary. The public representatives of the Regent House are the two Proctors, elected to serve for one year, on the nomination of the Colleges.
Council and the General Board
Although the University Council is the principal executive and policy-making body of the university, it must report and be accountable to the Regent House through a variety of checks and balances. It has the right of reporting to the university, and is obliged to advise the Regent House on matters of general concern to the university. It does both of these by causing notices to be published by authority in the Cambridge University Reporter, the official journal of the university. Since January 2005, the membership of the council has included two external members, and the Regent House voted for an increase from two to four in the number of external members in March 2008, and this was approved by Her Majesty the Queen in July 2008.
The General Board of the Faculties is responsible for the academic and educational policy of the university, and is accountable to the council for its management of these affairs.
Faculty Boards are responsible to the General Board; other Boards and Syndicates are responsible either to the General Board (if primarily for academic purposes) or to the council. In this way, the various arms of the university are kept under the supervision of the central administration, and thus the Regent House.
Finances
Benefactions and fundraising
In 2000, Bill Gates of Microsoft donated US$210 million through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to endow the Gates Scholarships for students from outside the UK seeking postgraduate study at Cambridge.
In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2019, the central university, excluding colleges, had a total income of ?2.192 billion, of which ?592.4 million was from research grants and contracts.
Over the past decade to 2019, Cambridge has received an average of ?271m a year in philanthropic donations.
The 'Stormzy Scholarship for Black UK Students' covers tuition costs for two students and maintenance grants for up to four years.
In October 2021, the university paused the ?400m collaboration with the United Arab Emirates, citing the claims of the Arab nation's involvement in the controversial hacking using the NSO Group's Pegasus software. As per the reports, the Emirates was the major country involved in the leak of over 50,000 phone numbers, including hundreds belonging to the British. The university's outgoing Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Toope said the decision to reconsider plans with the UAE was caused by further revelations about the Pegasus software hacking.
Bonds
The University of Cambridge borrowed ?350 million by issuing a 40-year security bond in October 2012. Its interest rate is about 0.6 percent higher than a British government 40-year bond. Vice-Chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz hailed the success of the issue. In a 2010 report, the Russell Group of 20 leading universities made a conclusion that higher education could be financed by issuing bonds.