Oxford and the global community

Established in 2005, the Oxford Martin School is a unique, interdisciplinary research community of over 300 scholars working to address the most pressing global challenges of the 21st century. From the governance of geoengineering and the possibilities of quantum physics, to the future of food and the implications of our ageing population, the Oxford Martin School’s research is helping to better anticipate the consequences of our collective actions globally, and influence policy and behaviour accordingly.

Tropical Medicine is a collection of research groups focused on infectious diseases and permanently based in Africa and Asia. Our research in tropical medicine ranges from clinical studies to behavioural sciences, with capacity building integral to all of our activities. Oxford’s Clinical Trial Service Unit’s work chiefly involves studies of the causes and treatment of “chronic” diseases such as cancer, heart attack or stroke (which, collectively, account for most adult deaths worldwide). Much of the work is carried out abroad, in collaboration with local partners. 

The new Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, founded in 2010, prepares students for a career in public service and leadership, whether in government, NGOs and charities or within the private sector. Effective and fair governance is a challenge faced by countries around the world. The School seeks to meet this challenge by enabling future leaders to make sound policy choices, using the latest evidence from across a range of fields and disciplines. Students at the Blavatnik School form a highly cosmopolitan student body, with its inaugural cohort drawn from nearly 20 countries, and are taught by academics, policymakers and industry experts from around the world.

The Skoll Centre, based at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, offers scholarships to social entrepreneurs from poor or marginalised communities. Each year, the Skoll World Forum brings together some 800 social entrepreneurs, academics, financiers, politicians, policy makers and others from more than 60 countries around the world, who assemble in Oxford to look at new ways to tackle the challenges facing humanity: poverty, climate change, disease and more.

One way in which Oxford students work to alleviate poverty and build social capacity in the developing world is through charity TravelAid. In recent years, TravelAid volunteers have established an HIV/AIDS clinic in Kenya, taught English to the Masai in Tanzania, developed a microfinance scheme in Cambodia and led summer camps in Ecuador. The charity was conceived in 2000 by three Oxford students who returned from working in Georgia impassioned by the mutual benefit the visit had brought to themselves and the local community. Today, TravelAid provides students from all disciplines and backgrounds with the chance to undertake 4-6 week volunteering projects with partner charities. Projects currently span four continents and range from education and microfinance, to health and social inclusion.

For many across the world, Oxford defines the English language. This is because of OUP, the world’s leading publisher of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials. Arguably OUP’s most famous publication is the Oxford English Dictionary, which is, in reality, an ongoing research project designed to capture the ever-evolving landscape of the English language.  

OUP is the world’s largest university press. Eighty-five per cent of its £492 million turnover comes from outside the UK, and worldwide it has 5,000 employees and a presence in over 100 countries. Today, 146 academic institutions from 27 developing countries have free online access to its scholarly journals collection. In China alone, 14 million school children use Oxford books every year, and internationally around 16 million children use Oxford ELT materials to learn English. More than one in five people who learn English across the world do so with an Oxford University Press resource. 

Oxford’s libraries and museums, long a cultural powerhouse with some of the world’s finest collections of manuscripts and artefacts, are increasingly accessible to the global community.

Not just for students, Oxford’s Bodleian Library has been supporting academic research for more than 400 years. Each year the Bodleian receives visitors from across the globe who wish to use one of the many rare books, manuscripts, archives, maps and primary research collections that the University Library holds.

The Bodleian Library has recently announced a joint project with the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana to digitise repositories of ancient texts, and 1.5 million pages from their remarkable collections will be made freely available online to researchers and the general public worldwide. The digitized collections will be in three subject areas: Greek manuscripts, 15th-century printed books (incunabula) and Hebrew manuscripts and early printed books. These collections will be made available online for open access in stages over the next four years.     

The Ashmolean Museum has several online exhibitions, including recent displays of the art of Mughal India, Eastern Art, and most recently, an exhibition of ornamental textiles from Meiji Japan, which can now be viewed online from anywhere in the world. Similarly, the Pitt Rivers Museum hosts a number of virtual collections of anthropological and archaeological artefacts.

From first contacts in the 16th century, Oxford's relationship with India has grown to encompass a wide range of activities. A leading centre for the study of India in the West, Oxford introduced a new MSc course focused on the study of Contemporary India in 2008, complementing its two-year MPhil in Modern South Asian Studies. The University’s annual Oxford India Business Forum brings together business leaders and academics to discuss important business challenges. This year's Forum, in Delhi, focused on health and the environment. Researchers in Oxford collaborate with their counterparts at Indian institutions, generating new insights in fields such as physics, earth sciences and women's health, and running India's leading academic oncology network.