Lord Lewis of Newnham was the first Warden of Robinson College and oversaw the construction of the main College buildings and the establishment of the academic and social structure of Robinson. To mark his retirement as Warden, Robinson established the Lewis Research Scholarship Fund.

Research students are absolutely essential to the success of an academic community because they are the future of the profession. In order to attract the best research students based upon academic merit alone and irrespective of their financial circumstances, it is important that Robinson is able to offer research scholarships. This is particularly the case in humanities research, as commercial sponsorship, grants and other scholarships are more widely established for scientific and medical research. To help to meet this need, the College established the Lewis Research Scholarship Fund in 2001. In 2014, the endowment of the fund was completed, allowing Robinson to offer full Lewis Research Scholarships in the Humanities. Awards are for up to three years of research and therefore new awards are usually made every three years.

The Warden, Fellows and all members of Robinson are tremendously grateful to the donors who have made this scholarship a reality.  Their gifts, of all sizes, will enable many promising scholars to make Robinson their home and academic base for years to come.

In addition to the Lewis Research Scholarship, we are fortunate to be able to offer a Judy & Nigel Weiss Scholarship in the Arts & Humanities every third year on a similar basis to the Lewis Research Scholarship.  We need to raise another £18,000 to complete the endowment of a second Judy & Nigel Weiss Scholarship in the Arts & Humanities.  This would allow us to award a full PhD scholarship to a new scholar every year in rotation between the Lewis Research Scholarships and the Judy & Nigel Weiss Scholarships and so greatly strengthen our young, but vibrant and ambitious academic community.

The Lord Lewis Research Studentship in Chemistry was established in memory of Jack Lewis FRS, Baron Lewis of Newnham (13 February 1928 - 17 July 2014).  Robinson College and the University of Cambridge Department of Chemistry joined together to set up a PhD studentship in Chemistry, based at Robinson, in memory of Lord Lewis.  The fund will allow an outstanding PhD candidate to study Chemistry at Cambridge and is intended as a fitting tribute to the legacy of Lord Lewis. 

Background

Lord Lewis was the first Warden of Robinson College, overseeing the construction of the main college buildings and the establishment of the academic and social structure of Robinson.  He came to the Chemistry Department as Jack Lewis in 1970, and during his 25 years there he was a wonderful colleague, an exceptional mentor, an insightful scientist, and exerted a great influence on science in the department and beyond.

Chemistry at Cambridge

The University of Cambridge Chemistry Department is ranked in the top three in the world in terms of research, with about 60 research-active staff.  However, the funding it receives for studentships is declining or restricted to specific areas, which means some of the best candidates in the world are denied the opportunity to not only learn here, but also to make their own contributions to Cambridge.

PhD students are a valued part of our academic community:  they are the future of the academic profession, they begin their teaching careers whilst still PhD students and when they enter industry and the professions, they take their experience and apply it in productive ways to their chosen field. 

The decline in PhD funding has a wide-reaching impact, with loss of many talented individuals to scientific discovery and teaching and the wider economic and social impacts that this will have in industry and education.

Fitting Tribute

The Lewis Research Studentship is one small way to redress this problem, and will be a positive reflection of Lord Lewis’s significant contributions to Robinson College, to the University of Cambridge Chemistry Department and to Chemistry.

Funding Information

The cost to fully endow the Lord Lewis Research Studentship is £697,000*.  To date, £230,000 has been raised.  For further information, please contact the Development Office.

*Notes:

1.  This is based on a three-year PhD programme at the home rate.
2.  Cost per year is estimated to be:  University fee £7,362; maintenance fee £14,140; travel and consumables £5,000.
3.  Costs are illustrative, and based on 2015/16 fees.
4.  Endowment of £697,000 estimated to generate interest of £26,502 p.a. (at 3.8%).

In the past, the University of Cambridge offered financial support for those Modern and Medieval Language (MML) students wishing to undertake a vacation language course. This support was important in ensuring that all MML students, regardless of personal circumstances, were able to benefit from language immersion. Funding cuts to the University's central grant mean that this scheme no longer exists. With the help of the Chaffield Shaw Trust, Robinson has therefore established a fund to make alternative grants available so that our MML students can still undertake such courses, which have a significant impact on a student’s ability to achieve his or her potential in Final examinations.  

From time to time this fund may also be used to support incoming freshers from low-achieving schools, who will benefit enormously from an immersion course abroad in the September before they start at Robinson.  This allows us to admit applicants with great potential who have not benefited from consistently good language teaching at school. 

The Chaffield Shaw MML Support Fund currently makes around £5,500 of grants each year to support Robinson language students on immersion courses in their languages of study.  To endow this and so secure this source of funding, we need to raise £140,000.

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Language immersion courses are an essential experience for Cambridge language students if they are to reach their potential in their studies. Until recently the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (AMES, which older members may remember as Oriental Studies) was able to give financial support to undergraduate students to enable them to undertake both immersion vacation language courses in their first year and a full year abroad in their third year of study.  However, departmental funds are no longer available to students and the College is therefore fundraising for this purpose. Without such support, Asian and Middle Eastern languages are in danger of being subjects that are only accessible to those with funding from family means, or other outside sources.  At Robinson we would like to maintain access to all subjects for all candidates based on academic ability alone and not upon their financial situation. 

Robinson is a strong college for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Professor Peter Kornicki (Deputy Warden), Dr Mike Shin and Dr Imre Galambos are on our Fellowship.  Peter is a scholar of Japan in particular and focuses on the history of the book; Mike is the University of Cambridge’s first lecturer in Korean Studies, focusing on the intellectual history of the colonial period; and Imre specialises in pre-Modern China, particularly the history of the Chinese writing, manuscripts and epigraphy.  As a result the College aims to admit an average of 3 AMES students each year.  To support this number of students so that they can afford to complete the overseas study and work necessary to do well in their undergraduate degrees, we need to make grants averaging £500 to each first year and £1,250 to each year-abroad student in the third year, a total of £5,250 in grants each year.

Robinson is fortunate to have a fund designed to support AMES students in this way, the Matsuo Fund, for studies in Japan.  However, at present it has an endowment of just over £39,000, generating an annual grant making capacity of £1,560.  Robinson would like to increase its endowment for AMES students to £135,000, a fundraising target of £96,000.

Medical students at Robinson, like all those undergoing clinical training within the University of Cambridge, are expected to undertake an elective period of clinical practice and research during their fifth year of studying medicine (the second clinical year).  Students select an elective opportunity depending on a range of factors.  Many try to use this period to work in a completely different environment from the NHS in order to broaden their clinical and research experience and to provide comparisons for the system in which their training is based.  Often they do this by arranging an elective overseas, either in a developing country with limited healthcare resources, or in a developed country with different funding systems for, or approaches to, healthcare or research.  Such electives are invaluable in helping to train and develop the best possible patient-centred clinicians.  Approximately 80% of students chose to undertake their elective abroad in order to experience a different health system from the NHS.  The remaining 20% chose to complete their electives in the UK and used this time to gain greater experience in one or two particular speciality areas, as for many students this elective is their only chance to spend more than a week or two in certain specialities before they had to make decisions about applying for a speciality registrar place later in their career progression.

Students are expected to cover the costs of these electives, including travel, occupational health costs (such as inoculations), elective fees payable to the host hospital, accommodation and subsistence.  These costs can have a significant impact on the choices that students are able to make about their elective period, with those from lower income backgrounds sometimes unable to pursue their preferred elective due to of lack of funds.  Given these electives are compulsory, this can also mean that students have lower personal funds available for subsistence during term time.

The number of students affected in this way at Robinson is increasing, in part because of the increase in student fees for UK/EU students in recent years creating a situation in which medical students are already heavily in debt by this stage of their training and also because the allocation of clinical training places in the UK is changing.  From 2015 all pre-clinical medical students at Cambridge will remain in Cambridge for their clinical training.  Previously, the allocation of clinical places around the UK was decided by a funding formula that resulted in up to half the pre-clinical students from Cambridge having to move to London, Oxford or other centres of medical training because there were insufficient places available at Cambridge.  It will be a great benefit to medical students to be able to complete their training within a single university, but it does mean that Robinson will have up to nine students going on medical elective placements each year, instead of the previous three.

In addition to the compulsory clinical electives, the brightest students are encouraged to undertake a summer placement during their pre-clinical training.  These are approximately 2 months long and usually based in a high-level bioscience lab in the UK or overseas.  The best students are encouraged to undertake these projects in order to further develop their capabilities and realise their full potential as a clinician by providing a more detailed understanding of the scientific research behind clinical practice.  It also encourages students to consider applying for combined MB/PhD programmes, or complete a PhD or MD later in their clinical training.  These programmes are highly competitive, and summer research projects provide valuable research experience for their applications, as well as important insights into academic medical careers. The College would like to offer up to four grants per year averaging £750 each.

This combination of the increase in student fees, the increased numbers of clinical students at Robinson and the restricted grant-making resources already available in College has resulted in the decision to seek to raise funds for a dedicated and permanent medical student support fund.  In the first instance, we aim to be able to offer each medical student an average of £1,500 towards their medical elective expenses and later to also award up to four summer project grants per annum.  With up to nine students per annum applying for elective support, this £13,500 per annum cost for electives, plus £3,000 for summer projects, requires an endowment fund of £413,000 based on the College’s 4% draw down rule. Seed-corn funding of £30,000 has been given to establish the Chaffield Shaw Medical Support Fund.