New $50-million gift to McMaster will build ties between medical and business schools

Retired industrialist Michael G DeGroote has added to a previous donation to McMaster Univ with a $50-million gift to its School of Medicine. The latest donation was made during the graduation ceremony for more than 200 medical students. It follows DeGroote's 2003 donation of $105 million — the largest cash gift to a Canadian university in history (R$, January 28/03).

The new gift will be used to strengthen ties between the medical school and the DeGroote School of Business, which received millions from DeGroote in the 1990s. McMaster's School of Engineering is also engaged.

A new seed fund to assist researchers in commercializing their discoveries will receive $30 million, $10 million will be used to develop a combined MD/MBA program and $10 million will go towards further development of promising biomedical engineering devices.

In a statement, Dr John Kelton, dean and VP of the Faculty of Health Sciences, described the impact DeGroote's latest gift will have on the university and the City of Hamilton.

"We're first going to ... bring together the finest leaders to teach students about health leadership and we want to train people around the world. We think there is great opportunity for citizens for learning but also for creating wealth in Hamilton to better align biomedical engineering and health because often times the newest treatments involve new devices, new approaches," said Kelton. "Finally, there's a very significant component that is going to take the researchers in McMaster in health sciences and they are going to receive seed money ... to push their research envelope even higher."

DeGroote's 2003 donation was spread over five years and included an endowment that generates $3 million annually. It also included $41 million for the university's new life sciences building with funding aimed at pain, cancer and infectious diseases. At the time of the donation, both DeGroote and university officials expressed the hope that it would spur other philanthropists to follow suit.

That hasn't happened and McMaster has struggled recently in attracting sponsored research funding. In 2012, it secured $325.2 million, a slight drop from 2011. That's down significantly from $346.4 million in 2007, according to data from Research Infosource.

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