Cambridge welcomes the second year of Gates Scholars

Studying subjects across the entire range of knowledge, the students, through their learning, will be well placed to engage with the challenges of the modern world.

Vice-Chancellor and Chairman of the Gates Cambridge Trust, Professor Sir Alec Broers, is delighted to welcome the new students to Cambridge.

"Cambridge is pleased to be a partner in this major initiative which increases the University’s capacity to promote education, learning and research at the highest level, to foster international understanding, and to contribute solutions to the problems facing the world," he said.

Their studies are highly diverse and, for example, include research on asymmetric synthesis for the development of new and more powerful drugs such as anti-tumour agents and antibiotics; improving the lives of those in less developed countries; playing a leading role in the technology policy in Chile and influencing the impact of global archaeological problems and policies in cultural heritage management and the antiquities trade.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship programme is one of the largest ever for university education and was officially announced by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the University of Cambridge in October 2000. Establishing a trust worth US$210 million, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation set up the scheme that will run in perpetuity.

These highly competitive scholarships are given for graduate work in Cambridge and are open to students from all countries of the world outside the UK.

Photo: Bill Gates has lunch with the Gates Scholars when he visited the University in December 2001.