Culture / Newsy

Rice University Gets a Record $100 Million Gift From Welch Foundation for Groundbreaking New Institute

The Largest Donation in the Foundation's 65 Year History

BY // 09.02.20

In an unprecedented move, the Houston-based Welch Foundation is making a 10-year $100 million commitment to Rice University for the creation of The Welch Institute, which will focus on advanced materials research. It is research that is expected to translate into the discovery, design and manufacture of new materials that will benefit mankind.

The monumental gift is the largest in the history of the 65-year-old foundation, which was created in 1954 by Robert A. Welch. Over the history of the foundation, $1 billion has been distributed for fundamental chemistry research at colleges and universities across Texas. Welch made his fortune in oil and minerals and held strongly to his belief in the importance of chemistry’s role in positive advancements in the world.

The announcement was made in a ceremony Wednesday morning in the Jones Graduate School of Business on the Rice campus.

Shortly after the official announcement, Carin Barth, chair and director of the Welch Foundation, talked to PaperCity on the extraordinary gift.

“This will bring new talent and advanced materials research and diversification to the city,” Barth says, adding her excitement at the prospects this gift brings to Rice and to Houston.

The “complex transaction” of making the gift required 11 months of collaboration between the foundation and Rice, Barth explains, “to insure that the money is truly spent for talent. It’s really about attracting talent and the industry that follows these scientists to Texas.”

Set your Easter Table with Bering's

Swipe
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024
  • Bering's Gift's Easter 2024

The Welch Foundation mission, Barth notes is “to fund intellectual curiosity. We are very, very welcoming to new ideas but it has to be related to chemistry.”

rice university welch
Rice University is recipient of a $100 million gift from The Welch Foundation, the largest in the Houston-based foundation’s history.

Barth tells PaperCity that the foundation assets are in the $750 million range (down from $850 in December before the coronavirus pandemic hit investors) and climbing. The gift to Rice, she adds, will not diminish the foundation’s strong tradition of giving at universities across the state.

Joining in the program was Rice University president David Leebron who noted, “The creation of The Welch Institute at Rice University illustrates what is possible when great institutions from across our great city come together in new ways to create new possibilities and new levels of achievement for our city and the world.”

In a statement, Leebron said, “Rice University is an ideal foundry for the next generation of advanced materials because of our strengths in both materials and computational sciences. The Welch Institute will foster an ecosystem of exploration, drawing from diverse disciplines to drive a new materials-based era to advance human welfare and progress, a multi-faceted successor to previous eras defined by stone, iron, bronze and silicon.”

Little known beyond the community of scientists, the Welch Foundation has endowed 48 chairs at 21 Texas universities and is recognized for the annual Welch Award in Chemistry, the annual Welch Foundation Conference and the Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research, named for Rice’s fourth president.

Hop into Bering's this Easter for Egg-citing Finds!
Shop Berings
SHOP NOW

Featured Properties

Swipe
X
X