Former UOW Vice Chancellor Emeritus Professor Ken McKinnon and Suzanne Walker will give $5 million to the university to support postgraduate research.

The pair originally planned for the bequest to be written into their will, but on Ms Walker's urging, decided to make the gift now.

"I said to Ken one day, why wait until we're dead? Maybe we'll live long enough to actually see some outcomes on this."

Professor McKinnon, who was UOW's second vice chancellor between 1981 and 1995, has seen the impact similar bequests can have overseas.

As a doctoral student, Professor McKinnon studied at Harvard, the university with the largest academic endowment in the world, worth nearly $US50 billion.

"When I became Vice Chancellor, I went back there and said to people that I knew, how do you get your money?"

Unlike Australian universities, which are largely funded by the Commonwealth government and student fees, the most prestigious universities in the United States, such as Harvard and those in the Ivy League, rely on the earnings from multibillion dollar endowments, built up through donations by alumni and other benefactors.

After stepping down as Vice Chancellor at UOW in 1995, Professor McKinnon and Ms Walker worked at a number of other Australian universities, including James Cook University and Charles Darwin University and has seen how universities in Australia have been squeezed as federal funding has been cut.

In addition, governments and universities have redirected funding away from arts and humanities towards STEM subjects, leading to a lack of graduates in areas such as teaching, Professor McKinnon said. To address this, the $5 million gift would be accessible to graduates from all faculties.

"We want the best possible people, and if we get big enough over 20 years, it would be good to have a few people in each faculty get some," he said.

Next year, UOW will celebrate its 50th anniversary, since being established as an independent institution and current Vice Chancellor Professor Patricia Davidson said the bequest would perpetuate the legacy that Professor McKinnon left.

"From the very start of his term as Vice-Chancellor, Professor McKinnon's vision was that the University of Wollongong should and would aspire to excellence on the world stage, while supporting and reflecting the communities it served. It is a legacy that we continue to honour and that we are dedicated to living up to," Professor Davidson said.

"This generous gift from Professor McKinnon and Ms Walker will further add to that legacy, ensuring that future McKinnon Walker Research Fellows strive for excellence and to provide leadership for our communities."

While Professor McKinnon and Ms Walker - who also donated $1.3 million to UOW in 2016 - are keen to see where the gift leads postgraduate researchers, they are as eager to see others with the means to do so follow in their footsteps.

"I think a few very well off people may not have thought much about it, but they should get and talk to the university about what would be good, and there are a lot of ideas floating around," Professor McKinnon said.

"It's high time."