India-UK Business School Dialogue: Reflections and achievements

Our second India-UK Business School Dialogue in Delhi from 14-16 September brought 33 Indian and 39 UK business schools together with key stakeholders, partners, and supporting sponsors. Around the Dialogue conference itself, fringe activities included a stakeholder reception at the British Council, a UK member delegation to GIFT City, another to Hyderabad, and a UK Alumni Reception at the British Council in New Delhi. 

Building opportunities for UK-India partnerships 

Across this week in September, members received a very warm welcome, with a repeated call from key stakeholders for UK business schools to establish sustainable partnerships that would help drive up quality at Indian business schools. Whilst our membership of 125 UK business schools is dwarfed by reports of some 7,000 business schools in India, there is clear acknowledgement that the quality within our schools is the cornerstone of partnership opportunities. 

We got a very strong steer that our members should get out into the 28 states and find the growing regions with government agencies tasked with driving up the quality of education provision. 

The launch of our [TNR Policy Statement] to complement the [TNE Policy Statement] published last year was widely welcomed, along with the report from Aston University decoding the opportunities that lie between the Indian National Education Policy 2020 and our 2026 International Education Strategy. 

At the Dialogue conference itself, delegates heard from a sterling line-up of keynote speakers, including Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General of the Confederation of Indian Industry; Shiv Shivakumar, Author and Operating Partner, Advent International; Ben Mellor, Acting High Commissioner to the Republic of India; Lily Bi, President & CEO, AACSB; Ashish Tewari, Head of Responsible AI Office, Infosys; and KT Rajan, Cluster Director, Technology, Innovation, Education & Skills, BIST, India. 

Leading the UK delegation again this year was Lord Karan Bilimoria, alongside our Co-Chairs, Debashis Chatterjee, Director, IIM Kozhikode, and Pawan Budhwar, Associate Deputy Vice Chancellor International, Aston University. 

Exploring opportunities beyond the Dialogue 

The 11 business schools that joined the delegation to Hyderabad were received by the Chief Minister, Revanth Reddy, of the Telangana government, who spoke passionately about the need to raise standards in higher education through TNE and TNR partnerships with UK business schools. 

Also meeting the delegation were the Secretary to the Education Department, the Secretary to the Skills & Labour Department, and the Secretary for the Telangana Council of Higher Education. There is now an open invitation to all Chartered ABS members to join the Invest in Telangana Summit in December, where plans for Bharat Future City will be inaugurated. 

The delegation was also warmly received by Madan Pillutla, Dean of the Indian School of Business, one of the most highly regarded and ranked business schools in India. 

Visits to the Telangana government’s innovation hubs, T-Hub and T-Works, provided both inspiration and envy, but most importantly, we received the opportunity to take forward discussions on how our member business schools could build collaborative programmes. 

The visit also included a networking reception with 15 business schools, universities, and regional stakeholders, creating further opportunities for members to make connections and explore potential partnerships. 

On 17 and 18 September, UK members were also offered the opportunity to visit the campuses of five Indian business schools that had attended the Dialogue. 

The smaller delegation to GIFT City was warmly received by the regulator, IFSCA, which announced more support services for business schools considering this location for a campus. The delegation visited the GIFT City campuses of Deakin University and Queen’s University Belfast. 

Beyond the delegations to Hyderabad and GIFT City, UK members were also invited to visit business school campuses across India, including IIM Kozhikode, Amity University, IMI Delhi, and XLRI. 

Extending the reach of the Dialogue 

A significant development this year was the media engagement and subsequent coverage we secured around the Dialogue. Joining us at the Dialogue reception and conference were journalists from The Times of India, ET Education, Careers360, The Indian Express, and Business Standard. 

The Dialogue generated coverage across a range of national and specialist media, extending the reach of the discussions and opportunities emerging from the week. Coverage included ET Education, The Hindu, The Times of India, and Eastern Eye. 

Building on the Dialogue 

All round, I am delighted to report another resounding success in our second year of the India-UK Business School Dialogue. We deepened our knowledge, extended our network, and, most importantly, got into two of the growing regions of India, along with the greater New Delhi region. 

We are all very grateful for the great support received from our partners – the British Council, AIMA, AMDISA, INDAM, and IBG – and from our sponsors, Bloomberg, Carrington Crisp, the Case Centre, and QED. 

The work to support you to build TNE and TNR in India will continue at our Annual Conference in November, with the afternoon session on the second day being devoted to outbound internationalisation. 

If you managed to join us in India this year, please do give us your feedback and, of course, we would love to hear from the rest of you on where you think we are best placed to deliver member services around internationalisation.