Cambridge: new Cosmology Institute opens

The new Institute for Cosmology at Cambridge University, funded by the Kavli Foundation, opened this week.

The Institute will form part of an international network of research centres funded by the Kavli Foundation at other universities around the world, and will collaborate with sister centres in China and the US.

This is the first time that the Foundation, headed by the entrepreneur and philanthropist Fred Kavli, has set up an institute in the UK. Its brief is to make scientific advances in knowledge and our understanding of the universe.

The research programme spans a range of topics from the physics of the early universe, to the formation of the first stars and galaxies. The Kavli Foundation’s donation has been used to establish a number of fellowships. In total, about 55 research scientists and graduate students from the Institute of Astronomy, the Cavendish Laboratory, and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, will be housed in the new building.