Harvard launches $US6.5 bn capital bid

HARVARD University has launched a $US6.5 billion ($A6.92 billion) capital campaign that, if successful, would be the largest fundraising effort in the history of higher education.

The school on Saturday said the campaign had broad goals spanning all its schools and would fund research into neuroscience, stem cell science and low-cost energy for the developing world.

The campaign will target major renovations of the university's undergraduate housing and increase its study of new learning and teaching strategies.

It also aims to expand the school's global presence, including through an ongoing project to develop a centre in Shanghai for conferences and research.

Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said the campaign will help the school meet the world's increasingly complex needs.

"We will meet these challenges, and in doing so, we will reaffirm what makes Harvard - and universities in general - such essential and irreplaceable contributors to the pursuit of knowledge and the welfare," Faust said in a press release.

The campaign quietly began two years ago. Harvard says it has already raised $US2.8 billion ($A2.98 billion) in gifts and pledges, some of which has already been used.

The school aims to reach its $US6.5 billion goal by 2018.

If it does so, the campaign would surpass a five-year, $US6.2 billion campaign by Stanford University that ended last year.

Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania have completed multi-year fundraising campaigns that netted $US3.9 billion and $US3.5 billion, respectively.

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Harvard launches $US6.5 bn capital bid