Oxford set to learn from India
21 Jan 08
Oxford University is to establish an India Business Centre and a new Chair in Indian business studies, the Vice-Chancellor Dr John Hood has announced at a visit to New Delhi, where he is accompanying the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Centre, which will be located at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, will address major business issues affecting India, through collaborative research between academics in Oxford, India and elsewhere.
Dr John Hood, said: ‘The primary objective of this research centre is to learn from India’s business success. A clear understanding of the issues faced by India and their innovative solutions, as India transitions from poverty to prosperity, will form a guide to future generations of countries attempting similar transitions.’
The Oxford University India Business Centre has been generously supported by Lavasa Corporation and as part of this support, Lavasa has endowed a new Chair – The Ajit Gulabchand Professor of Indian Business Studies named after Lavasa’s Chairman. The new Professor will be based at the Saïd Business School in Oxford, and it is envisaged that the appointment will be made for the next academic year.
The official Memorandum of Agreement will be signed by Mr Ajit Gulabchand and Dr John Hood at the World Economic Forum at Davos on 25 January 2008.
Professor Colin Mayer, Dean of the Saїd Business School, said: ‘We are enormously grateful for the generosity of Lavasa in making the establishment of this important Centre possible. The purpose of the Centre is to address major business policy questions in India through collaborative research between academics in Oxford, in India, and from around the world, and to engage practitioners and policymakers actively in formulating a research agenda that will be relevant and significant.
‘Besides the generation of research-based projects, the Centre will be concerned with teaching and will provide doctoral programmes for students and scholarships for our degree programmes in Oxford. We will also develop a range of executive education programmes for practitioners to be delivered in India. We will welcome the involvement of both practitioners and visiting academics with the work of the Centre, as well as the contributions of colleagues from throughout the University of Oxford, who have an interest in these issues.’
One of the key activities of the Oxford University India Business Centre will be to develop a range of custom and open executive education programmes which will be delivered in India at a new facility located in Lavasa, near Pune.
Mr Gulabchand, Chairman of Lavasa Corporation, commented: ‘It is a matter of great pride for Lavasa to have partnered with the most respected educational institution in the world. This will open new paradigms of educational and managerial excellence for students in both countries.’
The Centre is seeking further funding to support a range of scholarships for Indian students to join the Saïd Business School’s degree programmes in Oxford, and is in discussion with a small number of organisations.
Professor Colin Mayer commented: ‘We want to encourage the widest possible engagement with the Centre among companies with interests in India, as well as among academics and policy makers, and we look forward to working closely with a number of organisations to take forward the work of the Centre. It is our intention that students joining one of the Centre’s scholarship programmes will be encouraged to work in Indian institutions on completion of their studies in Oxford.’