WiWi-News Detail

On Monday, 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 Said 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. 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 Said 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 Said 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 Lavasaâ��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 Said 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.

The third annual Oxford India Business Forum will take place on 14 March 2008 in Mumbai. Paul Sarbanes, former US senator, and Michael Oxley, vice chairman of NASDAQ, will join a distinguished panel to debate the theme of corporate governance in the context of capital markets at the third Oxford India Business Forum. Other confirmed speakers include: James Turley, chairman, Ernst & Young; Antonio Borges, vice chairman, Goldman Sachs International; and Peter Sharratt, Vice Chairman Europe and Asia, Lehman Brothers. The Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Dr John Hood, will also attend.

The Oxford India Business Forum is an annual event that provides a platform for global business leaders, academics, policy makers and sector specialists to debate some of the most pertinent issues affecting business, economic and social growth in this part of the world.

For further details of the Forum please see the Forum website http://www.sbs.oxford.edu/india


About Said Business School
Established in 1996 the Said Business School is one of Europe‘s youngest and most entrepreneurial business schools with a reputation for innovative business education. An integral part of Oxford University, the School embodies the academic rigour and forward thinking that has made Oxford a world leader in education. The School has an established reputation for research in a wide range of areas, including finance and accounting, organisational analysis, international management, strategy and operations management. The school is dedicated to developing a new generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs and conducting research not only into the nature of business, but the connections between business and the wider world. In the Financial Times ranking of MBA programmes (Jan 07), Said again improved its position and is ranked 19th in the world. This achievement follows the School‘s success in HM Treasury‘s 2005 ranking of the top 50 MBA programmes in the world, where it finished number one out of all the UK business schools. In the university league table published by The Guardian (May 2007), Said ranked first of all UK universities for undergraduate business. The University of Oxford also ranked top for business studies in The Times report published in August 2007.

For more information, see http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk