OICSD Leaflet 2022-23

BARONESS ROYALL OF BLAISDON, Principal of Somerville “At Somerville, we are especially proud of our strong and flourishing ties with India, and those ties are not only about our past but about the future. The Centre enables researchers to translate academic ideas into policy initiatives with the power to change people’s lives in India.”

Cornelia Sorabji in 1889. Sorabji was the first Indian student at Somerville, and the first Indian woman admitted to Oxford.

The Oxonian India Foundation The Oxonian India Foundation (‘OIF’) is a not for profit Section 8 company registered in India in December 2015. The OIF gives donors based in India a new and tax-efficient way to support the activities of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development at Somerville College, Oxford. The purpose of the foundation is to provide scholarship funding and to promote education and research activities which benefit India. The company has been approved by the regulator and tax authorities in India. All contributions made from now onwards are eligible for tax-efficient deductions under Section 80-G. As of 2020, it is registered for CSR contributions. For further information please contact Sara Kalim at: sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.uk

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE PATRICIA HEWITT, Chair of Advisory Board

THE OXFORD INDIA CENTRE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT SOMERVILLE COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

We are delighted that Sir Ratan Tata is Honorary Patron of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.

OICSD International Advisory Board members The Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt, former UK Health Secretary and Chair of the UK India Business Council, Dr Arindam Bhattacharya, Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group, India, Ms Zerbanoo Gifford, human rights campaigner and founder of the ASHA Centre, Dr Pheroza Godrej, Art-historian, environmentalist and writer, Mr Kumar Iyer, former British Deputy High Commissioner to India, Professor The Lord Patel of Bradford OBE, member of the House of Lords, Mr Nayan Patel PHF, risk management specialist, Ms Judith Unwin OBE, international banking expert, Dr Nermeen Varawalla, business leader in healthcare solutions, Sir Suma Chakrabarti, former President of EBRD and former permanent secretary of UK, Department for International Development and the Ministry of Justice, Mr Nasser Munjee, Member of the Board of Directors, Tata Chemicals

“I have no doubt that the Oxford India Centre, which is already helping to develop India’s next generation of leaders, will play an increasingly important role in building broader and deeper relationships between India and the UK, to the great benefit of both countries.”

For further information please contact: Sara Kalim, Director of Development Somerville College Woodstock Road Oxford OX2 6HD

Dr Siddharth Arora, Programme Director Somerville College Woodstock Road Oxford OX2 6HD

Dr Radhika Khosla, Research Director Somerville College Woodstock Road Oxford OX2 6HD

T: +44 (0) 1865 280596 M: +44 (0) 7972 864997

T: +44 (0) 01865 270724

T: +44 (0) 01865 270724

sara.kalim@some.ox.ac.uk

siddharth.arora@some.ox.ac.uk

radhika.khosla@some.ox.ac.uk

Visit us at: www.some.ox.ac.uk/the-oicsd

AN HISTORIC OXFORD-INDIA PARTNERSHIP The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development (OICSD) is a unique Oxford-India partnership created to advance research on the complex challenges and opportunities posed by sustainable development in India. The OICSD brings together different academic disciplines and approaches to address a core set of sustainability challenges, develops future leaders by providing fully-funded scholarships to talented Indian graduate students, and translates academic research into policyrelevant actions and impacts in India, UK and beyond.

THE OICSD TEAM

INDIA’S FUTURE LEADERS The OICSD provides funding for talented Indian graduate students who would not otherwise be able to take their places at Oxford. We have 19 scholars at the Centre in the academic year of 2022-23, studying various aspects of sustainable development. As part of the tough selection process, all had to demonstrate a commitment to return to India. As well as their in-depth studies, the centre generates a community for the scholars to provide them with the networks and skills to return to India as educated and effective leaders.

“The OICSD is my family away from home. Of course, the scholarship has been crucial in undertaking my study, but it is the community, that turns Oxford into a place where excellence and personal growth are fostered. It is so much more than a funding body, providing me with an intellectual space to exercise freedom of thought.”

“I believe that novel semiconductors including perovskites and perovskite inspired materials will be an important technological leap in the global transition to clean energy and through OICSD I want to use my research to create the greatest impact in the field of clean energy especially for countries such as India.”

MEDHA MUKHERJEE DPhil candidate in Geography and the Environment Studying water access in rural India

SNIGDHA LAL DPhil candidate in Condensed Matter Physics Studying perovskite solar cells

DR VAANATHI SUNDARESAN OICSD alumnus & DPhil Biomedical Imaging Assistant Professor, Department of Computational and Data Sciences, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, India “The OICSD provides an excellent avenue for understanding and developing interdisciplinary research. My scholarship helped me to understand the impact of various other disciplines on healthcare, which assisted me in achieving my long-term goal of promoting sustainable healthcare delivery in rural India through academic research and industrial collaboration. Moreover, I also improved my social connectivity and management skills by organizing OICSD seminar meetings and conference.”

PROF RADHIKA KHOSLA Research Director

DR SIDDHARTH ARORA Programme Director

SARA KALIM Director of Development

VINITA GOVINDARAJAN OICSD Partnerships and Communications Manager

Prof Radhika Khosla is Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, University of Oxford, and works on examining the productive tensions between urban transitions, energy services consumption and climate change with a focus on developing country cities.

Siddharth leads the scholarship programme at the OICSD and works towards building a community of students and researchers. An applied mathematician, with an interest in developing novel remote healthcare technologies, he applies smartphone technology to detect and monitor the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.

Sara has a long-standing family connection to India, with family coming from Patna, Bihar. She also studied at Somerville making her the perfect advocate to drive the further development of the Centre. Sara’s focus is on fundraising and profile-raising working with philanthropists and corporate partners.

Vinita manages OICSD’s partnerships, strategic communications, research outreach design and relationship building, and is responsible for the Centre’s operations. She works with the Research Director on developing the Centre’s research strategy, global presence and impact.

CURRENT RESEARCH The OICSD takes a broad view of sustainable development, encompassing social, environmental, economic and policy aspects. It also deliberately takes an interdisciplinary and cross-cutting approach, for example drawing in law, governance, engineering, technology, as well as relevant areas within the humanities, physical, medical and social sciences.

The Centre’s Research Director leads the academic programme, structured around the following themes.

CLIMATE CHANGE, COOLING AND LIFESTYLES The Centre’s work on cooling is aimed at meeting climate and development priorities - exploring cooling energy consumption in India’s urban households, how cooling is conceptualised, the cooling strategies of households, airconditioner trends and gendered cooling consumption.

HEALTHCARE AND TECHNOLOGY Researchers at the OICSD are working on remote technologies for the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease; the ways in which a value-based healthcare approach improves patient safety and healthcare; and social determinants of health.

BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION Current OICSD scholars are working on forest and biodiversity conservation - the impacts of climate change on forest birds in Arunachal Pradesh, reforestation as a climate mitigation strategy, and traditional ecological knowledge of indigenous communities in Karnataka.

LAW AND HUMAN RIGHTS Legal scholarship is a core area of research for OICSD’s scholars, with one scholar being a part of the Oxford Human Rights Hub team which made submission to the Violence Against Women, and another studying how the concept of indirect discrimination has slipped through the registers of Indian constitutional law.

FOOD AND NUTRITION One of OICSD’s priority areas is food and nutrition in India.

The Centre has hosted webinars, readings groups and the conference ‘Food Futures in a Changing Climate’ with UPL in September 2021. In 2016, the OICSD hosted a three-day conference on food, agriculture and the environment.