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Phil and Penny Knight have committed $1 billion—the largest gift ever given to a comprehensive public university—to the University of Oregon, with the intention of establishing a college of engineering located at the Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact.

The recent announcement is the latest philanthropic gift from Nike Co-Founder Phil Knight and his wife Penny to Oregon science and medical research. Phil Knight is a 1959 graduate of UO. 

The new intended college in Eugene, at an ARCS Oregon partner university, would educate engineers and applied scientists in bioengineering and other high-demand disciplines, attract faculty and researchers to a growing campus and accelerate the university’s ability to move discoveries out of the laboratory and into products, therapies, technologies and companies, according to the University of Oregon. 

The gift is the third commitment the Knights have made at this scale in 10 years, following $500 million in 2016 and $500 million in 2021 that created and expanded the Knight Campus in Eugene. Those gifts drew further support from the state, industry partners, foundations, and other donors.

“Phil and Penny Knight have a long history of believing in things before they exist,” University of Oregon President Karl Scholz said. “They did it in 2016, and they are doing it again now, at a scale that is genuinely hard to take in. I am grateful to them, and I am grateful to be here for it."

Since 2016, the Knight Campus has established the University of Oregon’s first engineering department, graduated the first engineers in the university’s history, and grown to 17 research laboratories engaging more than 500 students and trainees each year. 

The Knight Campus is also an engine for entrepreneurship. Through incubator laboratories in the Papé Family Innovation Center, partnerships with more than 200 companies and access to capital through Launch Oregon, it has supported more than a dozen student- and faculty-led startups, among them Penderia Technologies, VivoTex and restor3D.

Bob Guldberg, vice president, and Robert and Leona DeArmond, Executive Director of the Knight Campus, said, “The Knight Campus stands on the foundation of a remarkable Oregon legacy: the belief that bold innovation can unlock human potential. Today, we carry that same belief forward, applying it to science, technology, and human health.”

The university will work through appropriate state and shared governance processes to establish the college and its degree programs. The proposed college advances Oregon Rising, the university’s strategic plan. 

The University of Oregon, in Eugene, became an ARCS Oregon partner in 2015.

"To make an audacious dream a reality requires more than a vivid imagination. It also requires the sort of opportunity that our great American universities, both public and private, have historically provided. This is no time to abandon them. Penny and I are grateful for the chance to invest in our most promising young people's future in this important way."

In August 2025, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) announced that Phil and Penny Knight donated $2 billion to the OHSU Knight Institute. Read more about that donation here: https://arcsfoundation.org/news/cancer-center-oregon-university-receives-2-billion-gift-pledge