Judge Business School

undation.

The donation will establish a fund, the Cambridge Endowment for Financial Research (CERF), based at the University's business school, the Judge Institute of Management.

The research programme will focus on financial markets and institutions which have re-emerged as prime determinants of micro-economic behaviour and macro-economic performance. The research programme funded by CERF will cross conventional disciplinary boundaries and address the theoretical analysis, operational realities and economic consequences of financial behaviour.

Announcing his donation, Cambridge University graduate, William Janeway said: 'CERF has been set up to enhance our understanding of how and why financial markets have evolved as they have and behave as they do.

'Events of recent years such as the recurrent financial crises in the emerging markets, the Long Term Capital Management fiasco and the Internet Bubble validate this mission and confirm it timeliness.'

'CERF belongs at Cambridge,' Janeway added.

'As Keynes placed the key elements of finance- the determinants of investment, the relative valuation of financial and real assets, and the role of liquidity- at the core of economic analysis, so multi-dimensional research into the history, practice and theory of finance is distinctively appropriate for a 'Cambridge Endowment'.'

CERF will build on the extensive research already established at the Judge Institute of Management and throughout the University.

The Centre for Financial Research led by Professor Michael Dempster conducts research into financial engineering, risk management, asset liability management, real time trading and real options.

There are other strong foundations in the work of the International Financial Regulation Project led by Lord Eatwell, parts of Centre for Business Research led by Professor Alan Hughes and the work of individual researchers in the Economics, Law and Mathematics faculties.

A new dimension will also be added by collaboration with finance specialists at MIT through the Cambridge-MIT Institute.

The first step for CERF will be the establishment of a research programme which seeks to link macro-economic policy, on interest rates, exchange rates and taxation, to the behaviour of individual firms - the risks they attempt to manage and the risks their actions create for the economy as a whole.

This research will be conducted by local researchers and by CERF's Visitor Programme that will draw on experts from academia and the financial world for periods of up to a year in length.

The managers of the fund will be chaired by the Vice Chancellor of the University, Sir Alec Broers and will include Professor Sandra Dawson, Director of the Judge Institute of Management. They will be supported by an International Advisory committee chaired by a practitioner from the financial sector.

The Acting Director of CERF will be Lord Eatwell, President of Queens College, Cambridge pending a permanent appointment made later in the year.

The official launch of CERF takes place this evening at the Judge Institute of Management. It is to be attended by Bill and Weslie Janeway and other members of CERF as well as representatives from the Bank of England, FSA and the Financial Services Regulatory Practice.

William Janeway is vice chairman of Warburg Pincus, a leading global venture capital firm. His experience encompasses over 30 years of practical finance in investment banking and venture capital. Since joining Warburg Pincus in 1988, he has focused the firm to develop its investment activities in Information Technology on distributed computing, now radically extended by the commercialization of the Internet.

William Janeway holds a doctorate in Economics from the University of Cambridge awarded in 1971.

The Judge Institute of Management is Cambridge University's business school. Founded in 1990 it now has a faculty of 70 teaching and research staff and over 250 students. It has five research centres, including the Centre for Financial Research (CFR) led by Professor Michael Dempster.

At present, CFR research programmes employ eight post-doctoral fellows and 12 PhD students. All research is conducted in close collaboration with appropriate practitioners including investment banks, financial services consultants and insurance services.

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