Together, we'll create space to think

To share life-changing academic opportunities with future generations, we’ll need to create new and relevant spaces for teaching and learning.

Provide opportunity at every stage

We also want to recognise the challenges of accessing an academic career by extending the range of scholarships we provide to graduate students and supporting Somerville’s early career academics.

And nurture the life of the mind

Nearly all of us remember having that lightbulb moment when a tutor said something which changed the way we see the world forever. Together, we can share that moment with the Somervillians of today and tomorrow.

Our Priorities Are

Champion early career academics

Somerville College previously established a strong model for supporting early career academics through the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship. Created alongside the Department of Chemistry, this fellowship recognised the difficulties young academics face in coming back into research following a career break. The success of this early career fellowship has shown us how important these posts are, and how much they are needed across the subjects and Divisions.

Read about the work of Dr Fay Probert, Somerville College’s inaugural Dorothy Hodgkin Career Development Fellow

Cost: £50,000 p.a.

Expand our scholarship programme

To attract and support the brightest students with scholarships and funding, freeing them from financial worry, We want to increase our scholarship provision from the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust and the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development so that we can offer at least 20 fully endowed scholarships across these two programmes.

Cost: 5m endowed.

Create contemporary spaces for teaching and research

Our new flagship building on the ROQ site will provide high-spec rooms for collaboration, learning and events that showcase the work of Somerville’s scholars, academics and research centres.

The RISE Campaign: Excellence
The RISE Campaign: Excellence

Impact stories

Alastair Ahamed (2016, Law; Recipient of the inaugural Bingham Law Scholarship)

“I feel honoured to have received such support in pursuing my BCL at Somerville. Through it, I regularly find myself in a room with not just the cleverest law students from Oxford and Cambridge, but from around the world.”

Sawsan El-Zahr (2023, DPhil Engineering Science; Oxford Qatar Thatcher Scholar)

“I was so honoured to win first prize in STEM for Britain, and I hope that the discussions we had about sustainability can impact policy making. This research would not be possible without the support I have received at Oxford, and especially at Somerville.”

Mathew Madain (2019, MSc Middle Eastern Studies; Oxford Qatar Thatcher Scholar

“The awards given through the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust have forever transformed the lives and careers of awardees, many of whom come to Oxford from faraway places.”

Martin Fellermeyer (2021, DPhil Medical Sciences; Oxford Thatcher Scholar at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine)

“I am deeply grateful to the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship for enabling me to come to this inspiring city and carry out the research for my D.Phil. It’s a privilege to do this work here in Oxford, and I hope it makes a difference.”

Milton Lee (2023, Physics; Lee Kwan Yew Thatcher Scholar)

“My joy at winning a place to read Physics at Oxford was tempered by the reality of tuition fees. Discovering the Lee Kuan Yew-Thatcher Scholarship changed everything for me; with it, I aim to contribute towards the fight against climate change to the best of my ability.”

Dr Fay Probert, Somerville’s Dorothy Hodgkin Career Development Fellow

“In a sense, my whole career has been guided by the search for interdisciplinary collaboration – first as a mathematician, then a mathematical biologist and finally as an analytical chemist who, since my time at Somerville, has a lab of her own. ”

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