The InDIRA GAnDhI CenTRe fOR SUSTAInAble DevelOpmenT India

The Indira Gandhi Centre for Sustainable Development
will help shape the next century of India’s growth
by educating, connecting and supporting its future
leaders in sustainable development and forging lasting
partnerships between Indian institutions of learning and
the University of Oxford.
The way India develops during the 21st Century will not only have an impact on its 1.25 billion people,
but will also have world-wide significance. Finding a new sustainable model of economic growth for
India’s development will play a critical part in averting a global crisis.
Somerville College, a constituent college of the collegiate University of Oxford, is Indira Gandhi’s alma mater. The Indira Gandhi
Centre will honour her legacy to the world by addressing key issues of sustainable development. There will be three core activities:
advancing research, developing talent and facilitating collaboration, centred on a landmark facility in the University of Oxford’s new
Radcliffe Observatory Quarter.
For more than six centuries, the University of Oxford has treasured its links with India. Building on these strong historic foundations,
Oxford is committed to deepen and extend strategic collaborations in India, particularly in areas such as food security, environmental
sustainability, international governance and global culture. Building on the University’s pioneering research into these areas of
pressing concern, the Indira Gandhi Centre will celebrate one of the most prominent world leaders of the 20th Century by increasing
support for Indian students and advancing interdisciplinary research in sustainable development.
The Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, and the Principal
of Somerville College, Dr Alice Prochaska, are delighted and honoured that this vital project has received generous support from
the Government of India. The University has a strong history of providing scholarship opportunities for students from India, and it
is a strategic priority for Oxford to increase the number of such scholarships in coming years. The support from the Government of
India towards endowing scholarships for graduate students at the Indira Gandhi Centre represents a milestone in advancing these
opportunities.
Somerville College plans to establish the Indira Gandhi Centre programme, working closely with the rest of the University, in the
period 2012-2017, in time for the centenary celebrations of Mrs Gandhi’s birth on 19 November 1917. Over the next few decades,
the Centre will become one of the most dynamic, interdisciplinary sites at the University of Oxford. It will have a transformational
impact on the lives of future leaders, who will help to direct a new paradigm of sustainable development in India and beyond.
Mrs Gandhi greeting Somerville scholar Sobhita Jain during her visit to Oxford in 1971