Dame Anna Lisbet Kristina Rausing, (born 9 June 1960) is a science historian and philanthropist. She is a co-founder of the

Arcadia Fund The Arcadia Fund is a UK charity organization founded by Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Established in 2001, the organisation provides grants on a worldwide basis focusing on numerous projects outside the UK. The primary focus of the organis ...

, one of the UK's largest philanthropic foundations.

Early life

Lisbet Rausing is the eldest daughter of Hans Rausing and his wife Märit Rausing. She has one sister,

Sigrid Rausing Sigrid Maria Elisabet Rausing FRSL (born 29 January 1962) is a Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist and publisher. She is the founder of the Sigrid Rausing Trust, one of the United Kingdom's largest philanthropic foundations, and owner of ''G ...

, and one brother, Hans Kristian Rausing. Her grandfather, Ruben Rausing, was co-founder of the Swedish packaging company

Tetra Pak Tetra Pak is a Swedish multinational food packaging and processing company headquartered in Switzerland. The company offers packaging, filling machines and processing for dairy, beverages, cheese, ice cream and prepared food, including distr ...

. Rausing studied History at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

(B.A., summa cum laude 1984) and completed an M.A. (1987) and Ph.D. (1993) in History at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Career

Harvard University Press published Rausing's scholarly biography of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

, ''Linnaeus: Nature and Nation'' in 1999. Throughout her career she has published a range of articles on related subjects in scholarly journals including ''Isis'', ''Representations'', ''Configurations'', and ''History of Political Economy''. She has also contributed to the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' and ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Tele ...

'', and has published a number of pieces on the evolution of archive digitization and on open access to scholarship. Rausing is a senior research fellow at King's College. She holds honorary doctorates from

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

and

SOAS The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...

. She is also an honorary fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

, the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

, the

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society (RHS), founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the H ...

, The

Royal Society of Biology The Royal Society of Biology (RSB), previously called the Society of Biology, is a learned society and professional association in the United Kingdom created to advance the interests of biology in academia, industry, education, and research. Fo ...

and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. She was elected to the

Harvard Board of Overseers The Harvard Board of Overseers (more formally The Honorable and Reverend the Board of Overseers) is an advisory board of alumni at Harvard University. Unlike the Harvard Corporation, the Board of Overseers is not a fiduciary governing board, but in ...

(2005–2011) and Yad Hanadiv Advisory Committee (2001–2011). She served on the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Advisory Board from 2012 to 2022.

Philanthropy

Peter-Baldwin-Libset-Rausing-e1538496110718

Lisbet Rausing co-founded the Arcadia Fund in 2001 with her husband Professor Peter Baldwin. As of March 2022, the Fund has made grant commitments of over $919 million to charities and scholarly institutions globally that preserve cultural heritage and the environment and promote open access. Arcadia-funded projects include the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme at Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the Endangered Archives Programme at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

and Fauna & Flora International's Halcyon Land and Sea fund. They are listed as one of the biggest benefactors to the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

and donated $5 million to the Wikimedia endowment in 2017 after Baldwin joined its advisory board. Rausing and Baldwin also founded Lund Trust. Since 2002 Lund Trust has given more than $77.7 million to charities in the UK and internationally. In 2024, Rausing donated £500,000 to the Labour Party.https://donation.watch/en/unitedkingdom/2024/donors

References

External links

Arcadia FundBiography at Imperial CollegeHarvard University Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rausing, Lisbet 1960 births Living people English people of Swedish descent Historians of science Swedish philanthropists Swedish women philanthropists Lisbet Harvard University alumni Fellows of the Royal Society of Biology University of California, Berkeley alumni Honorary Fellows of the British Academy Labour Party (UK) donors Dames Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Early life

Career

Philanthropy

See also

References

External links