Oxford University in England is to have an India Business Centre and a new Chair in Indian Business Studies. Their establishment was announced by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood, on January 21 during a visit to New Delhi.

The India Business Centre, which will be located at Oxford University’s Said Business School, will address major business issues affecting India, through collaborative research between academics in Oxford, India and elsewhere.

In announcing the 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.”

Dr Hood said Oxford University has had “a long and rich relationship” with India — the first Indian students went to Oxford in 1871. Just 12 years later, the University founded an Indian Institute at Oxford.

Through new posts, scholarship programmes, academic and cultural exchanges, the University was committed to expanding and invigorating the connections with India that have enriched its 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,” he added.

The India Business Centre has been generously supported by Lavasa Corporation (part of the Hindustan Construction Company) and its Chairman, Mr Ajit Gulabchand. As part of this support, Lavasa has endowed the new Chair at Oxford University named after Mr Gulabchand — the Ajit Gulabchand Professor of Indian Business Studies.

Mr Gulabchand said, “Our collaboration with the University of Oxford is in line with Lavasa’s vision to provide an appropriate atmosphere for enabling high-quality research….The new Centre is in line with Lavasa’s concept of Live, Work, Learn and Play.”

The Said Business School in Oxford, established in 1996, is one of Europe’s youngest and most entrepreneurial business schools, with a reputation for innovative business education. Its faculty is engaged in boundary-extending research on key management issues, working with the wider intellectual community.

The Said Business School’s full integration with Oxford University allows it to draw on the latter’s strengths across a range of subjects, including economics, sociology, law, psychology, politics and international relations.

Professor Colin Mayer, Dean of the Said Business School, said that besides generating research-based projects the India Business Centre would be concerned with teaching and would provide doctoral programmes for students and scholarships for degree programmes in Oxford. “We will also develop a range of executive education programmes for practitioners to be delivered in India,” he added.

The executive education programmes will be made available at a new facility at Lavasa, near Pune.  The first programmes are expected to be delivered in early 2010.