Northwestern University has announced a $480 million (£350 million) donation from the family of insurance tycoon Patrick Ryan, the largest in the institution’s history and one of the largest ever in US higher education.

The university just north of Chicago  to a seven-year fundraising campaign that collected more than $6 billion.

Mr Ryan is the founder and retired chairman and chief executive officer of the Aon Corporation, and his family designated the gift for use in research involving medicine, economics and business, and for rebuilding the university’s football stadium.

Their donation, and this year’s second $500 million gift to the University of Oregon from the family of Nike founder Phil Knight, are  in the history of US higher education.

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Nearly half the $6 billion raised by Northwestern since 2014 in the funding campaign will be spent in medical fields.

Mr Ryan graduated from Northwestern in 1959 and his wife, Shirley, a specialist in infant development and disability, completed her degree in 1961.

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They have been major donors to their alma mater for decades. The latest gift “will have a profound and lasting impact on faculty and student opportunities, including research and discovery”, Northwestern’s president, Morton Schapiro, said.

The Ryan gift envisions creating or extending a series of funds, centres, facilities and initiatives bearing the family name.

The most prominent is likely the football stadium, which took the Ryan name in 1997 after he financed a $10 million renovation.

The 95-year-old facility was previously named after William Dyche, a former Northwestern business manager and mayor of Evanston who led its original fundraising effort and was promised by the university’s governing board .

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paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com