The largest-ever delegation of University academics to go to India is to tour the cities of Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata.

The 24-strong delegation is led by the Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Anton Muscatelli, and will show the University’s world leading research and teaching in areas as diverse as Life Sciences, Innovation & Technology, Engineering, Physics, Business, Economics, Education & Law. Delegates will meet existing and potential academic and business partners across India.  The group will also speak to groups of potential students as part of a recruitment drive to emphasise Glasgow’s welcome to international students, as well as to a number of the University’s alumni from India.

Professor Richard Cogdell

In Delhi, Professor Muscatelli will deliver a lecture on “Inequality: Causes and Cure” as part of the British Council’s “Knowledge is Great” lecture series.

He said: “The University of Glasgow has long and distinguished links with academic colleagues and business partners in India. The first Indian University of Glasgow students arrived in 1870 and the first graduate was Gopal Chandra Roy from Bengal who qualified as a doctor in 1871. As we move through the 21st century, it is vitally important to Glasgow that this international welcome continues to be extended to students and staff from India.”

A number of events have been organised in partnership with the British Education Centre, covering topics ranging from business education to copyright law. Delegates representing the University of Glasgow’s Adam Smith Business School will deliver a number of Masterclasses.

Delegates representing all four Colleges – Arts, Social Sciences, Science and Engineering, and Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences – are taking part in the visit which opens at the Indus Training and Research Institute in Bangalore before moving on to Biocon in Bangalore, India’s biggest biopharmaceutical company.  Among the Indian universities which are being visited are: the University of Delhi, the University of Calcutta, and IISER Pune, all of which already have close ties with colleagues at Glasgow.

The following academics offer a flavour of the range of interests that will be covered by the delegation:

  • Professor Richard Cogdell, Hooker Chair of Botany: researching how photosynthesis techniques might be used to create clean energy. He is a signatory to a recent letter to Nature magazine, along with other international scientists, calling for a Grand International Challenge to deliver clean energy.
  • Prof Sayantan Ghosal, Professor of Economics at the Adam Smith Business School, who will be discussing “inclusive development” – an issue particularly relevant to India because of its societal inequalities.  He has worked on a training programme in West Bengal, along with an NGO, in which “dream-workshops” helped sex-workers to transform their lives both economically and emotionally.  The work has been cited by the World Bank in a report “Mind, Society and Behaviour"

Professor Sayantan Ghosal

  • Professor Nigel Leask, Regius Professor of English:  as part of a British Council-funded partnership, the Universities of Glasgow and Delhi have exchanged sets of lectures - four from UoG (Medieval Literature, Romanticism, James Joyce, Scottish Literature and Theory) and three from UoD (Shakespeare in C.19th Bengali Literature, Visual illustrations of Shakespeare, Gandhi and Life Writing).
  • Moyra Boland, Deputy Head of the School of Education: focusing on career-long teacher education and its attainment on pupil attainment;
  • Dr John Davies, Research fellow in history, and a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland: he has been collaborating with academics at the University of Calcutta on the early history of their respective nations and has written a new book Copper, Parchment and Stone comparing Indian texts in Sanskrit on copper, mediaeval royal texts in Scotland in parchment and text on stone in both countries.
  • Professor Sandosh Padmanabhan, Professor of Cardiovascular Genomics and Therapeutics: his most recently published research (October 2016) found that four commonly prescribed blood pressure medications may impact mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorder.

 

 

Media enquiries: liz.buie@glasgow.ac.uk / 0141 330 2702

First published: 2 November 2016

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