Funding from the Convocation Trust
The Trust was constituted in 1953 with funds provided from members of Convocation and continues to be supported by generous donations from alumni and philanthropists.
The Convocation Trust at a glance
The object of the Trust is to apply the Trust’s money “for educational and other charitable purposes beneficial to the members and community” of the University and its federation members.
The Trustees have made it their mission to allocate the Trust’s funds in support of projects which will promote the purposes of the University and provide demonstrable and substantial benefits to the University community as a whole, or to members of that community.
To that end the Trustees meet twice yearly to consider bids for funding from across the University, and those which are adjudged as best meeting these criteria are awarded financial support grants.
Examples of the kinds of projects that make bids to the Trust are illustrated below.
Projects that made bids to the Trust
SAS Being Human Festival
The Trust awarded £20,000 to ensure that the SAS Being Human Festival could put on an impressive show.
Lighting for the SAS Living Literature Frankenstein event
The Trust contributed £4,500 towards the lighting for the School of Advanced Study's event that explored the world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Senate House Library - Shakespeare 2016 and exhibition materials
The Trust awarded £50,000 to ensure that Senate House Library's Shakespeare 2016 exhibition was a great success.
Leading Women Plaque Scheme
The Trust awarded £6,500 which to enable the University of London to engage in a scheme to create plaques for many leading women.
A Living History of Job Hunting
The Trust awarded £97,636 to ensure that the Careers Group project 'The Great Grad Job Hunt' could realise its full potential.
Student Central refurbishment
The Trust awarded £15,240 for additional refurbishment work undertaken on student central.
The Trustees
Edward Hartill is an Alumnus of the University of London (BSc Estate Management) and a Chartered Surveyor. He started his career in the property investment departments of two major insurance companies in the City of London and later held the historic and influential position of City Surveyor at Guildhall from 1985 until 2008.
Edward has always been interested in helping young people and since the 1980’s has held a number of senior voluntary positions dealing with their care and education including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, Asset Skills, Coram and the University of London where he has served in many capacities for 20 years and been conferred with an Honorary Fellowship in 2019. He is delighted to be afforded the opportunity to join the Convocation Trust as an Independent Trustee.
Alastair is a member of Convocation as a graduate of the LSE, and has worked for two of the member institutions of the University of London.
He currently heads up human resources for a large emergency services organisation in the Midlands and holds a number of non-executive appointments.
Saj, an Economist by training, is Founder of the award-winning, The Smarty Train.
His interests lie in Accelerated Learning and disruptive training models.
His book, The Smarts (Penguin, 2019), looks at small things people can do everyday to hack work.
Saj has studied at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and University College London (UCL), where he received both a Graduate Merit Award and a Faculty Award for outstanding academic performance.
In 2017 he was awarded Freedom of the City of London and 2018 was nominated as one of a hundred faces of a Vibrant Economy.
Grey graduated in law from the University as an external student in 1971, before completing Bar Finals at the the Inns of Court School of Law in 1972.
He spent much of his career as an international corporate lawyer and compliance and governance specialist at GKN plc.
Other roles included the chairmanships of the Primary Markets Group of the London Stock Exchange, the CBI in the West Midlands and Oxfordshire and of the national education charity, Young Enterprise, as well as a non executive Director of the Competition Commission and as the senior independent director of Charter International plc.
He became a Trustee of the Convocation Trust in August 2017 and Chair of the Committee of Management in April 2022.
Varun graduated with an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science (Hons) and went on to complete his postgraduate Masters at Imperial College Business School.
He started his career in strategy consulting, firstly working at a Life Science & Healthcare consultancy and then moving on to work at a Competitive Intelligence (CI) firm. He later joined the public sector as a PMO Manager within the Transformation Directorate at a Community Healthcare NHS Trust.
Varun is currently studying for his Medicine (MBBS) degree at St George’s, University of London.
