The centre is being created by the Office of the Third Sector in partnership with the Carnegie UK Trust, the Economic & Social Research Council and the Scottish Executive. Initial funding from all four partners totals at least £2 million, and all are working to interest more partners in joining.

The Carnegie UK Trust said that the centre plans to work closely with academics, policy-makers, donors and fund-raisers to build a “credible intelligence base for the sector and to promote its research”. In addition it will provide training support and a publications and seminar programme.

Chair of Carnegie’s creative philanthropy programme, Jeremy Holmes, said: “We see this centre as becoming something similar to the philanthropy research centres in the US. Unlike the US, the UK and Europe generally have only ad hoc quantitative or qualitative research supporting philanthropy and charitable giving and we believe this new research centre will meet an urgent need.”

Ed Miliband, minister for the third sector, said that we knew far too little about how people could best be motivated to give and why they chose to give in a particular way. “High quality research and development is an essential component for the success of the third sector,” he added. “If more people made use of the generous tax breaks available, this alone could boost charities’ income by up to £600 million.”

Carnegie plans to coordinate a series of consultation meetings across the UK with the third sector, philanthropic organisations and research communities to discuss the potential work of the centre. Formal invitations to tender for the contract to host the centre will be published in the New Year, with a planned opening for the summer of 2007.