The foundation owns 25 per cent of LEGO, the Denmark-based toy company.

Cambridge¡¯s general board, which recommends the approval of the plans, has also suggested that a professorship of financial economics be established with a $25 million (?16.2 million) donation from Weslie R. Janeway, a geneticist, and her husband William H. Janeway, a senior adviser and managing director at US private equity firm Warburg Pincus, who is also a visiting scholar at Cambridge.

The proposals for the professorships will go before the university¡¯s Regent House for approval in July.

The of Cambridge¡¯s official journal, The Reporter, includes a notice from Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, the vice-chancellor, saying that ¡°he has accepted with gratitude a benefaction of ?1.5m from the LEGO Foundation, payable over three years, of which both the capital and the income may be used to support a Research Centre on Play in Education, Development, and Learning within the Faculty of Education over the same period¡±.

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It adds that the LEGO Foundation ¡°is also proposing to fund a LEGO professorship of play in education, development, and learning with a benefaction of ?2.5m¡±.

Cambridge¡¯s general board has recommended the establishment of the professorship from October 2015. The LEGO professor would be director of the Research Centre on Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDaL).

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The LEGO Foundation, a ¡°corporate foundation¡±, describes its aims, in general, as being ¡°to make children¡¯s lives better ¨C and communities stronger ¨C by making sure the fundamental value of play is understood, embraced and acted upon¡±.

The Reporter also states that Cambridge¡¯s board has ¡°accepted an academic case from the Council of the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences for the establishment from 1?October 2015 of a Janeway Professorship of Financial Economics in the Faculty of Economics¡±.

john.morgan@tesglobal.com