University of Cambridge receives $34.5 million for autism research

Howard Lake | 17 July 2026 | News

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• Cambridge University
• health
• Major gift
• record donation

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The University of Cambridge has received a gift of US$34.5 million from the philanthropist K. Lisa Yang to fund autism research and care. This is the largest single philanthropic gift to its School of Clinical Medicine since the school was formed in 1976, and one of the largest ever made for autism research to a UK university.

The donation will be split: $28 million will create the K. Lisa Yang Centre for Autism Research at Cambridge, while $6.5 million will fund the K. Lisa Yang Autism Clinical Centre, to be based in the new Cambridge Children’s Hospital. This is expected to be constructed by 2030.

Yang Tan Collective

The gift means that Cambridge joins the Yang Tan Collective, an alliance of research centres at Harvard and MIT that Yang has funded, two of which already focus on autism. The three autism centres will work together under a new Autism Research Institute at Cambridge, led by Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, whose Autism Research Centre has been established at the university for almost 30 years.

The funding will endow the K. Lisa Yang Fellowships, aimed at bringing early-career researchers into the field, and support work on questions including why life expectancy is lower among autistic people and how autism can be identified and diagnosed earlier.

K. Lisa Yang, named in TIME’s 2025 list of the 100 most influential people in philanthropy, said her hope was that the three centres would “uncover therapeutics and interventions” and “improve quality of lives for autistic people, their families, and the community”.

Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said the funding had “already been transformative in the US” and would allow Cambridge researchers to exchange expertise with peers at Harvard and MIT.

Majid Jafar, Co-Chair of the Cambridge Children’s Hospital Fundraising Campaign, added:

“Integrating the K. Lisa Yang Autism Clinical Centre within Cambridge Children’s Hospital will help transform the lives of autistic children and their families across the UK and globally. By bringing specialist expertise together in one dedicated setting, it will ensure autistic children receive timely, joined‑up care that recognises their individual strengths, supports their development, and helps them to thrive.”

The clinical centre forms part of the vision for Cambridge Children’s Hospital, a partnership between the University of Cambridge, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Yang’s gift contributes to the hospital’s £100 million philanthropic campaign.

• Cambridge University to launch £2 billion campaign (6 August 2015)
  
• £100 million donation is Cambridge University’s biggest ever gift (6 February 2019)
  
• Cambridge University campaign reaches £1 billion halfway mark (12 December 2017)

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About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale. He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.