India-born Reuben brothers, who are among the richest businessmen in Britain, have donated 80-million pounds to establish a major new scholarship programme for graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Oxford’s newest college, the university said in a statement.
British billionaire brothers David and Simon Reuben from Mumbai ranked the UK’s second-richest billionaires with a fortune of 16 billion pounds in ‘The Sunday Times” annual rich list, made the “transformational gift” to Park College established by the university last year.
The university said that in recognition of the “historic gift” from the Reuben Foundation, the college is now set to become “Reuben College”. The college is Oxford’s first in 30 years and will be renamed Reuben College from its provisional name Parks College. It will specialise in the study of cellular life, AI and environmental change.
“The current pandemic has shown us just how vital it is to have access to the very best medical research and academic thinking,” the Reuben family said in a statement.
“Fortunately, in the UK we have some of the finest minds in the world working in some of the most pre-eminent academic institutions. We hope that this endowment for the Reuben College will help keep Oxford University at the global forefront of research in the vital areas of Environmental Change, AI and Machine Learning and Cellular Life, thereby helping to improve the lives of millions of people long into the future,” they said.
“Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the Reuben family, Reuben College will join the storied ranks of Oxford Colleges,” said Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford.
