Lisbet Rausing

Dame Anna Lisbet Kristina Rausing (born 9 June 1960) is a British and Swedish science historian and philanthropist. She co-founded the Arcadia Fund, one of the UK's largest philanthropic foundations.

Early life Anna Lisbet Kristina Rausing, born on 9 June 1960 in Lund, Sweden, is a member of the wealthy Swedish Rausing family. She is the eldest child and daughter of Hans (1926–2019) and Märit Rausing, and has one sister, Sigrid Rausing (born 1962) and one brother, Sir Hans Kristian Rausing (born 1963). Her grandfather, Ruben Rausing (1895–1983), was co-founder of the Swedish multinational food packaging company Tetra Pak.The milk of human kindness: Meet the Rausings - website of the British online newspaper The Independent

Rausing earned a B.A. degree summa cum laude in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984. She later pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, where she received a M.A. degree in History in 1987, followed by a Ph.D. in the same field in 1993.

Career Harvard University Press published Rausing's scholarly biography of Carl Linnaeus, 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,"Linnaeus' Floral Transplants." Representations, 47 (1994) Configurations,"Women and utility in Enlightenment science" Configurations, 3 (1995) and History of Political Economy."Underwriting the Oeconomy: Linnaeus on Nature and Mind." History of Political Economy supplement to volume 35 (2003) She has also contributed to the Financial Times and The Sunday Telegraph, and has published a number of pieces on the evolution of archive digitization"Do Libraries Dream of Electric Sheep?" Going Digital: Evolutionary and Revolutionary Aspects of Digitization Nobel Symposium 147: Stockholm, 2011) and in Logos, 21(2010) and "Toward a new Alexandria: Imagining the Future of Libraries." The New Republic (12 March 2010) and on open access to scholarship."Toward a new Alexandria: Imagining the Future of Libraries", opendemocracy.net. Accessed 18 February 2023.

Rausing is a senior research fellow at King's College. She holds honorary doctorates from Uppsala University and SOAS. She is also an honorary fellow of the British Academy,. Accessed 3 December 2015 the Linnean Society, the Royal Historical Society, The Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry. She was elected to the Harvard Board of OverseersHarvard Board of Overseers, harvard.edu. Accessed 3 December 2015. (2005–2011) and Yad Hanadiv Advisory Committee (2001–2011). She served on the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Advisory Board from 2012 to 2022.

Philanthropy

Lisbet Rausing co-founded the Arcadia FundOfficial website (arcadiafund.org.uk) . Accessed 21 March 2026. 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. Accessed 21 March 2026. and Fauna & Flora International's Halcyon Land and Sea fund. They are listed as one of the biggest benefactors to the Wikimedia FoundationWikipedia 15 Contributors. Retrieved 15 January 2016. and donated $5 million to the Wikimedia endowment in 2017wmf:Resolution:Approval of Endowment funding (Fiscal Year 2016-2017) and matching $5 million gift from Peter Baldwin and Lisbet Rausing after Baldwin joined its advisory board.

Rausing is a long-term supporter of nature restoration in the Scottish Highlands.

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 2015, Rausing and Baldwin donated $25 million to Yale University to name the tower in Yale's Humanities Quadrangle after David F. Swensen.

In 2024, Rausing donated £500,000 to the Labour Party. The following year, in the 2025 Birthday Honours, Rausing was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

Lisbet Rausing

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