The philanthropic legacy of Sir Run Run Shaw

Sir Run Run Shaw, the Hong Kong media mogul, died on 7 January 2013 at the age of 106. According to the Ministry of Education of China, Shaw has donated more than HK$4.75 billion (US$612 million) since 1985 to create more than 6,013 education projects covering 31 provinces and cities throughout mainland China.

This endowment has benefited tens of millions of students from primary school to university. If we include the figure of his donation to healthcare in mainland China, he has donated a staggering sum to philanthropic projects of more than HK$10 billion (US$1.29 billion).

What could the rest of the world learn from the role of Sir Run Run Shaw in his philanthropic activities in the education sector?

Public-private collaboration

The Shaw Foundation considers fundraising proposals recommended by a selected pool of experts employed by the Ministry of Education in China. Chinese universities which submit proposals for endowments are required to commit to fundraise three times the funds donated by the foundation.

Once a university submits a proposal to the foundation, it already has official backing from municipal or provincial governments who are committed to finance the rest, or alternatively, the institutions themselves agree to finance the rest.

Perhaps governments and national education organisations might consider a more open-minded and flexible approach to involving the private sector in educational endowments in future. Could a model, adapted for each country, be developed between the public and private sectors to establish a joint partnership to finance the country’s education sector?

Grassroots vs elite

The higher a university ranks in a national or global ranking, the more private and public funding it is likely to receive. This approach could help a country to focus most of its resources on creating world-class universities.

But second or third tier education institutions with the potential to drive the local economy, create local jobs and bridge the gaps between different regions may not be attractive enough to private endowment funds.

Shaw gave funding to top Chinese universities, but also to more average ones. Some of these are at the bottom of the national league table and have traditionally struggled to attract big donors. There is a building donated and named after Shaw in almost every university on mainland China.

Certainly, policies could be developed to encourage local business to fundraise for local education institutions. Meanwhile, central government might consider incentivising business (local, national or global) to finance second- or third-tier universities, who could use smaller amounts of funding to better effect.

Higher education vs lifelong education

Higher education is considered to be the education sector with the biggest potential returns for individual investors. The majority of funds received by the education sector goes to higher education rather than to schools or further education.

However, further education has played a crucial role in improving the situation of society’s most deprived communities. For example, it is a central part of the European Commission’s life-long learning agenda.

In Shaw’s case, 80% of his endowment went to schools, special schools and technical institutions and only 20% to universities.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England published the Pearce Report in 2012, which aims to get £2 billion (US$3.3 billion) a year in charitable gifts to UK universities by 2022. The relevant national bodies could undertake a similar review process to boost schools and further education.

The recommendations of these reviews could be amalgamated to form a coherent UK national strategy for philanthropic endowment in education. Other nations could adopt the same approach.

Local vs global

Shaw’s education endowment is managed through the Shaw Foundation Hong Kong Limited, the Sir Run Run Shaw Charitable Trust and the Shaw Prize Foundation Limited.

It supports the local education of Chinese people in mainland China and, through the Sir Run Run Shaw Scholarship Program for Graduate Studies, hundreds of Chinese and other Asian students have been supported to pursue postgraduate study overseas in the US and UK at universities including Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge and Oxford.

Could central government do more to encourage the private sector to play an active role in financing domestic students to study, work or volunteer overseas, especially in the world’s most dynamic economies?

The Western economy needs to collaborate more with overseas emerging markets, especially the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and ASEAN – Association of Southeast Asian Nations – countries and Africa and Latin America.

This means that they need more employees who understand overseas markets. It makes sense for companies to support domestic students to have overseas experience in exchange for a few years’ employment.

Another issue to consider is whether we could encourage the private sector to assist in the sustainable expansion of existing government schemes for international mobility.

In the UK, these include the prestigious Generation UK programme, the Chevening Scholarships, the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, and many others.

Humanity without borders

When education institutions think about endowments, alumni fundraising is often their first thought. After all, why should one contribute to the development of an educational institution if one has never been educated there and benefited from this life-changing opportunity?

However, we also know that the sciences have no borders. The Brazilian government’s Sciences Without Borders scholarship scheme is intended to send 101,000 Brazilians to study STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – and the creative industries at top universities around the world.

In recognition of this concept, Shaw established the Shaw Prize to identify outstanding achievements in astronomy, life sciences and medicine and mathematical sciences.

While astronomers regularly receive the Nobel Prize for physics and there is a Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine, there is none for mathematics.

Since the introduction of the Shaw Prize in 2004, 54 leading scientists from around the world have received this prestigious prize, and seven of them later won the Nobel Prize.

The total prize amounts to HK$240 million (US$31 million). Because of its growing influence and prestige, the prize has been nicknamed the Nobel of the East.

When individual philanthropists consider giving back to society through educational endowments, they could consider this principle of “science without borders” or “humanity without borders”. They could set up a Nobel or Shaw type award to support the advancement of human civilisation as a whole, rather than just the university they attended or the country they grew up in.

What could national government and inter-governmental organisations do to encourage this approach? Tax relief already exists for such donations in most nations.

One might object to the introduction of such an award on the grounds that most important disciplines are already covered by the Nobel Prize and the Shaw Prize, and others, such as the Kavli Prize. Well, there are six subject areas covered by the Nobel Prize and three overlapping areas of the Shaw Prize.

The QS World University Ranking by Subject includes 30 main disciplines which most top universities around the world offer. This leaves more than 20 subjects waiting for the next Alfred Nobel or Sir Run Run Shaw to recognise.

Some of these subjects are hot topics for us all, including environmental science, and earth and marine science – the subject of the Vetlesen Prize – subjects which help to address global warming and pollution. Others include all the engineering and technology-related subjects.

We now appreciate that 3D printing, invented in 1984, only became global headline news in 2013, and other new subjects are emerging all the time. If a billionaire really wants to spare a few million dollars per year to help the world to become a better place collectively, finding the right discipline to award won’t be that difficult.

* Dr Christina Yan Zhang works in the QS Intelligence Unit.