As Fudan University is about to celebrate its 120th anniversary of founding, its alumni couple Li Ping and Liao Mei has made a one-time donation of 1 billion yuan ($137 million) to their alma mater to support the construction of the university's Xue Min Institute of Advanced Studies, which aims to become a world's top institution for high-level basic research and interdisciplinary research of natural sciences.

"We have been looking for such a donation program at Fudan, which we expect to be academically challenging, time-consuming, and financially demanding, but can have a profound effect on society. We would regard it as our social responsibility," said Liao Mei, an alumnus in the class of 1986 from the Department of History at Fudan University.

Li Ping, a polymers major in the class of 1985 from Fudan's Department of Materials. He and Liao first learned about the university's plan of establishing an advanced studies institute in November, and quickly hit it off after rounds of discussion.

"We feel China has come to the stage where it can make some contributions to the whole of humanity and world in the fields of natural sciences and basic sciences," said Li.

Eyeing interdisciplinary, cutting-edge and international research, the institute is committed to becoming a globally leading source of scientific and technological innovations, contributing Fudan's wisdom and efforts to building China as a sci-tech powerhouse.

The institute is set to open its door to global best young scientists within five years after graduation from their doctoral programs. It will provide support to help them carry out research with original breakthroughs, technological revolutions and far-reaching influences, striving for research results that can push forward the development of the society by leaps and bounds.

The institute will also be equipped with an academic council consisting of high-level international scholars, including Nobel Prize winners. Nobel laureate in chemistry Michael Levitt, a member of the academic council, said he expected the institute to blend the best of Eastern and Western academics and become a global leader in advanced studies. "We hope scholars from various fields across the world can gather here, to carry out in-depth, long-term and forward-looking original researches."