News

India Business Centre to Open at Oxford Saïd

21 January 2008

Read the Exec-ed Zone blog entry for more India Research Centre news.

Today, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Dr John Hood announced the establishment of the Oxford University India Business Centre and a new Chair in Indian business studies, during a visit to New Delhi. The Centre, which will be located at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, will address major business issues affecting India, through collaborative research between academics in Oxford, India and elsewhere.

In announcing this initiative, 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 University of Oxford has had a long and rich relationship with India – the first India students came to Oxford in 1871. Just 12 years later, the University founded the Indian Institute at Oxford, with the support of Indian government and business leaders. In more recent times, the University of Oxford has made strengthening its relationship with India one of its key priorities. Through new posts, scholarship programmes, academic and cultural exchanges, the University is committed to expanding and invigorating the connections with India that have enriched the University’s intellectual heritage for more than 400 years. The new Oxford University India Business Centre is the latest part of this developing relationship and will engage directly many of our academics from throughout the University in cross-disciplinary research.’

The Oxford University India Business Centre, has been generously supported by Lavasa Corporation whose chairman has donated £7.4m to the project. Lavasa is India's first new hilltown development since Independence and is 60% owned by the Hindustan Construction Corporation (HCC) of which Mr Gulabchand is Chairman. As part of this support, Lavasa has endowed a new Chair – The Ajit Gulabchand Professor of Indian Business Studies at the University of Oxford, 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.

Professor Colin Mayer, Dean of the Sa?d 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. The facility is part of a new development by the Lavasa Corporation Ltd. A scoping study with companies located in India and elsewhere is underway to begin development of these programmes which will first be delivered in early 2010.

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. Our collaboration with the University of Oxford is in line with Lavasa’s vision to provide an appropriate atmosphere for enabling high quality research. Lavasa will adequately support the infrastructural needs of the new executive education activities. The new Centre is in line with Lavasa’s concept of Live, Work, Learn and Play.’

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.’

Mr Ajit Gulabchand and Dr John Hood will sign the official Memorandum of Agreement at The World Economic Forum at Davos on 25 January 2008.