Twin funds were launched last night to honour the novelist Iris Murdoch by helping poor students and intensifying the fight against Alzheimer's disease, which killed her.

Oxford University announced a £2.5m appeal to found a professorial chair in old age psychiatry aimed at being in the forefront of world wide research into dementia, while St Anne's College, Oxford, where Murdoch was a fellow for 50 years, set out to raise £250,000 for student bursaries and a postgraduate scholarship.

Her widower and memoirist, the critic John Bayley, said the projects were "the most profoundly appropriate tribute" that could be paid to her life and work.