The University of Oregon said Tuesday it will start the second phase of building the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact after receiving another $500 million donation for the project from the Nike co-founder and his wife.
Construction on the first phase of the new campus started in 2016 — after the first half-a-billion dollar gift — with a large science building including a pedestrian bridge over the street, The Register-Guard reported.
A second building for “bioengineering and applied science research building to support expanded research programs and facilities,” will be built next, according to a university news release. The building is planned at 175,000 square feet, with multiple stories, and located north of the first building.
The focus of the new campus is to translate scientific discoveries into advances in healthcare and other fields.
The new money will also pay for 14 to 16 additional faculty members and their teams. The new campus currently employs 13 tenure-related faculty members and their research teams, for a total of about 90 employees.
"The aim of the new campus is to compress the timeline between discovery and “societal impact,” said "The hope is by putting engineering, science, business and medicine under the same roof the new campus will become home to “world-class research, training and entrepreneurship,” Robert Guldberg, vice president and executive director of the new science operation, said.
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CORRECTION: This version of the story corrects that the first phase of the Knight campus currently employs 13 tenure-related faculty members and their research teams, for a total of about 90 employees.