Fudan graduates donate a billion yuan to university

A couple who are Fudan alumni have donated a billion yuan ($137.2 million) to support an institute of advanced studies, the university, which is about to celebrate its 120th anniversary, revealed on Wednesday.

The donation came from Li Ping, a polymers major of Class 1985 and co-founder of Chinese battery giant CATL, and his wife Liao Mei, a history major of Class 1986.

The money will be used to support the development of the Xue Min Institute of Advanced Studies, which aims to become a world-class institution for high-level basic research and interdisciplinary research of natural sciences, and a hotbed of science and technology innovation.

It will welcome young scientists from all over the world within five years after graduation from their doctoral programs, said the university. It promises to provide support for them to carry out ground-breaking and revolutionary research with far-reaching influence. The support could be as long as 20 years, so researchers can feel enabled to carry out high-risk but high-value research.

The institute was established to address the challenges amid changes in the global science and technology innovation landscape and escalating technological and industrial reforms.

"We have been looking for such a program at Fudan, which we expect to be academically challenging, time consuming, and financially demanding but can have a profound effect on society. We would regard it as our social responsibility," said Liao.

When the couple heard about the plan to establish such an institute, they immediately began discussions with university leaders and eventually decided to make the donation.

"We feel China has come to the stage where it can make some contributions to the whole of humanity and world in the fields of natural sciences and basic sciences," said Li.