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Alumni Impact Fund

Hughes Hall alumni provided vital and generous support to the College community throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Students benefitted from new laptops and equipment, an increased number of vital hardship grants, and the provision of online mental health support. That is why, as we move beyond COVID, we have launched the Hughes Hall Alumni Impact Fund. 

The fund aims to harness the power of our alumni spread across the globe, in an effort to transform the college for current and future students. Funds will be directed to where they are most needed, allowing the college to respond to new challenges and ensuring that no cause is forgotten.

We believe that talented students should have access to a world-class education regardless of their social or financial background, and your generosity means that we can help to level the playing field through scholarships, hardship funds, travel grants, and upgraded student facilities and accommodation. From helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds to supporting life-changing research, your gift will make the world of difference to the next generation of Hughesians.

You can make a donation from anywhere in the world via our Giving Online page.

I was absolutely thrilled to receive the Gabrielle Sacconaghi Bacon scholarship in support of my MPhil at Hughes Hall. In addition to being one of the most international Colleges, Hughes is also undoubtedly the friendliest. Had I not received this funding, I simply would not have been able to attend and benefit from its lively and rich intellectual life. – Michael (Political Thought and Intellectual History MPhil, 2020)

Case study: a COVID-safe library

The Edwin Leong Library is a much-loved learning space with comfortable desks and chairs for long hours of study, calming views of the garden, and friendly librarians on hand to help find sought after books. Long term, the Library team are seeking to invest in additional copies of core textbooks that are in frequent demand from students, to expand the Library’s digital provision, and to grow it’s collection of books dedicated to student wellbeing.

During the pandemic, keeping the Library open for students has been one of the foremost priorities for the College, ensuring access to crucial resources for research and study. Custom-built perspex screens have been installed, new study sessions and library tours have been made available online, a ‘click and collect’ service has been introduced for borrowing books, and a booking system has been devised to carefully manage the Library’s capacity.

“As a second year PhD student I have always found the Edwin Leong Library to bethe best place to study in Cambridge… I particularly appreciate the hard work the team has done to make the Library the last to close during the March lockdown and one of the first to reopen in July, after making all the necessary changes.”

You can read more about the Edwin Leong Library.

Case Study: making Hughes Hall a ‘home from home’

Hughes Hall has students joining us from all over the world and we need to ensure our students can settle into life in Cambridge and the demands of their research and study quickly. Ensuring they have an affordable, accessible, and comfortable space to call their own is a vital part of this. We are currently only able to offer around 400 student rooms – 285 on site and 115 in residential streets around the city. Being able to expand our provision of on-site student rooms as well as providing communal spaces to bring our community together will make a tangible difference to College life.

When the University gym’s Gresham Road building became available following their relocation to the West Cambridge site, we were fortunate to be in a position where, with carefully stewarded funds and £1m of support from alumni and non-alumni donors, we were able to take on the site for an ambitious £12m building project to help address our accommodation needs for our international student body. The new Gresham Court building welcomed our first students in September 2016 and continues to offer some of the most up-to-date student accommodation in the University, including many rooms with magnificent views of the cricket pitch and the University tennis courts.

With 85 en-suite student rooms, 30 of those rooms named by donors, communal kitchens and study spaces, it has been a great addition to our estate and we remain immensely grateful to the donors who supported us to realise this project.

You can read more about our College accommodation.