The University of Chicago has announced a $10 million gift from alumnus and trustee Steve G. Stevanovich to establish an interdisciplinary institute dedicated to the study of knowledge.

The Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge will bring together scholars from many fields to examine the historical, social, and intellectual circumstances that give rise to different kinds of knowledge and how that knowledge shapes the modern world. To that end, the institute will function as a research laboratory and incubator for university faculty and visiting scholars, as well as Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scholars associated with the program.

Through the institute, scholars will have the opportunity to work on questions with broad geographical and historical scope, while faculty will teach a wide range of courses at both the graduate and undergraduate level focused on what we know, how we know it, and how knowledge is shaped by culture and the historical moment in which it was created. Led by Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer, the Helen A. Regenstein Distinguished Service Professor in Classics and the College, the institute will begin offering a seminar for graduate students next year and will share its research findings through a biannual journal, the Journal of the History of Knowledge.

Stevanovich (BA'85, MBA'90) is a longtime supporter of the university and in 2006 made a gift that led to the renaming of what is now known as the Stevanovich Center for Financial Mathematics.

"The Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of the Knowledge embodies a fundamental strength of the university: inquiry across disciplinary boundaries," said UChicago provost Eric Isaacs. "It will bring together scholars with divergent approaches but converging interests, enhancing innovative work on campus, and making our campus a global destination for scholars seeking a deeper understanding of the evolution of knowledge over time."