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British university gains multi-million dollar funding to develop London Olympic site

Xinhua, April 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

University College London (UCL) announced on Thursday that it had gained 280 million pounds (408 million U.S. dollars) in funding from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to develop part of the London Olympic Games site as a second campus.

The EIB loan is repayable over 30 years, and will fund the transformation of part of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into UCL East, a second campus for UCL.

The new campus will bring together cross-disciplinary UCL expertise in such areas as creativity and material culture, future global cities, experimental engineering, and education and research through public service. The first phase of UCL East is due to open during the 2019-2020 academic year.

The loan agreement was formally signed during a visit to UCL by Jonathan Taylor, vice president of the EIB. The loan follows the investment of 25 million pounds in January in the new UCL technology fund by the European Investment Fund, part of the EIB group.

Taylor said in a statement: "This new loan represents the largest-ever EIB backing for investment at a European university, and reflects the EIB's commitment to strengthen the local and global role of leading universities."

Jim O'Neill, commercial secretary to the UK Treasury, said: "This significant investment by the EU's bank...is set to transform UCL's two campuses."

Professor Michael Arthur, UCL president, said the loan would "help us deliver our ambitious growth plans, enhancing facilities for students and allowing our academics to continue to tackle key global research challenges." (1 British pound=1.46 U.S. dollars) Endit