Support our Shaping Newnham’s Future Campaign

Our target is £25m, to be raised by 2026.  Please support us here.

We have three main areas we wish to support in this campaign:

OUR STUDENTS

Wellbeing

Many students at Cambridge experience significant mental health challenges. Newnham must be at the forefront of developing better mental health support. To do this, the creation of the post of Wellbeing Advisor, based in College, is key.

We are asking you to support this new post so that students can access dedicated mental health support to ensure a more positive university experience, benefitting both their studies and future careers.

Postgraduate Scholarships

We ask you to support our postgraduate community, specifically Masters and PhD studentships to ensure we have funding so that we can attract the brightest students from all backgrounds.

Women continue to be underrepresented at postgraduate level across the University. Access to funding remains a barrier, as many young women meet the stringent criteria for a Masters or PhD course than can access the funding to actually start the course.

Your support will help expand the pipeline of highly qualified young women able to enter business, industry and academia and tackle the underrepresentation of women at senior levels.

ACADEMIC RESEARCH AND LEARNING

We are raising funds for the following:

Shaping the direction of history at Newnham

History is a popular subject for undergraduates and postgraduates at Newnham

Two of our senior fellows in History, Professor Gabriela Ramos and Dr Kate Fleet, are due to retire. We are therefore raising funds to co-fund a permanently employed University Teaching Officer in history who is also a College Fellow and Director of Studies.

Senior Members Research Support (SMRS)

Research-led teaching is at the heart of the Cambridge experience. Newnham provides much valued extra funds for the cutting edge research carried out by our academics.

Applying for grants can be a time consuming process. Your support will enable us to respond quickly to the needs of academics.

In the past year Newnham academics have received funds to: complete a project on how children with Downs syndrome learn; run a symposium on biomedical research relevant to age-related disease and buy equipment to assess earthquake damage used to support search and rescue following the devastating earthquake in southeast Turkey earlier this year.

General

Your support will help build a community of inspiring women academics who can transform the lives of their students and create impact in the academic arena.

Research-led teaching is at the heart of the Cambridge experience, but only 20% of professorships in UK universities are held by women and just 15% of such posts held at Cambridge despite women accounting for 45% of the academic workforce. Female professors and senior academics are not made overnight but rise up through the promotion grades where the percentage of successful women drops at each successive step.

Newnham, with its all-female Fellowship, is in a special position to be able to understand and support female academics through community, mentoring and research. Help us shape the future of Newnham’s academic research and learning.

GREENING NEWNHAM

Thanks to generous support from previous donors to elements of the campaign, postgraduate students will benefit from refurbished houses that have had gas boilers replaced with air source heat pumps and improved insulation. Our vision is to work towards a carbon net zero site.

We are asking you to support us on our journey as we shape the green future of our College. By taking steps to green all Newnham’s buildings, we join the global effort to reduce carbon emissions and safeguard not just our College’s future, but also that of our planet.

AREA OF GREATEST NEED

Unrestricted gifts give Newnham flexibility to seize opportunities and address unforeseen challenges as they arise.

Whilst we are very grateful for gifts for a specific purpose, it is particularly helpful to the College to receive unrestricted donations. These are applied where the need is greatest: whether towards the the shortfall in annual teaching costs, maintaining our beautiful Champneys buildings, or other expenses, such as the salaries of vital support staff.