Scotland’s University of Edinburgh has received an anonymous £10m donation to fund its Futures Institute. The Institute will scan wide horizons. It will bring together research and teaching from across the University and, beyond, it will attempt to form partnerships with businesses, NGOs, governments and other universities.

The press release announcing the donation also outlines an innovative approach, promising, for example, that the Institute’s research will ‘consider how areas such as theology can help tackle climate change or what business management can do to alleviate the refugee crisis.’

‘The world is experiencing major changes: climate volatility, political discontent, advances in artificial intelligence, economic upheavals,’ notes University Vice-Principal Professor Dorothy Miell. ‘We need different ways of thinking about these issues and of devising new solutions….Edinburgh Futures Institute will make that difference.’

The gift, the largest-ever capital donation to the University, will provide a permanent home for the University, enabling the refurbishment of Edinburgh’s former Royal Infirmary for the purpose.