The University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences has announced a $30 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Awarded as part of a $120 million capital campaign, the grant will help fund construction of a 234,000-square-foot complex featuring state-of-the-art laboratory space, classrooms, faculty and graduate student offices, a two-hundred-seat lecture hall, and some two dozen discussion areas and seminar rooms. Research on issues including climate change, genetics and DNA, safer and more fuel-efficient cars, and cybersecurity will benefit from "research clusters" throughout the building — large collaborative laboratories surrounded by faculty, graduate student, and visiting researcher offices. The building complex will be named the Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex in honor of the gift.

UT has secured $30 million in commitments for the project, including $10 million from the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

"This investment will advance the university's computer science program and help prepare future generations of innovative leaders," said Bill Gates. "We believe it will also complement our foundation's wider goal to increase the number of students who graduate from high school ready to succeed in college, and then the number of students who graduate from college."

“Computer Science Complex Gets $30 Million Challenge Grant From Gates Foundation.” University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences Press Release 4/17/09.

Source: Philanthropy News Digest