New UK campus alters perceptions of India’s HE landscape

The University of Southampton’s announcement that it has been granted a licence for an overseas branch campus has shown that it is possible to overcome bureaucratic hurdles relating to foreign universities, demonstrably altering perceptions of the Indian landscape in respect of overseas campuses.

Experts said the announcement on 29 August by the UK university is likely to speed up the branch campus ambitions of other universities, including from the United States and Europe, seeking to tap into possibilities for joint research as the Indian government pushes through major research and development initiatives.

Southampton, which now has permission to set up a comprehensive university, with academic courses scheduled to begin in July 2025, is the third foreign university to open a campus in India, but is the first outside of GIFT City in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat which operates under special regulations.

Addressing barriers to entry

Adrian Mutton, founder and executive chairman of Acumen, part of Sannam S4 Group, an international business consultancy representing a host of foreign universities interested in tie-ups in India and elsewhere, told University World News the landmark announcement showed “research-intensive universities globally have a role to play on Indian soil” and described it as “a really important milestone”.

“What’s impressed me about this announcement is that the stakeholders on the ground are really listening very intently to [concerns about] the barriers to entry, and they’re peeling the layers of the onion off it,” he said, referring to the presence of India’s Union Minister of Education Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar, as well as higher education regulatory body University Grants Commission (UGC) chair Manidala Jagadesh Kumar, at the Delhi announcement.

“For the government of India this has clearly become a strategic priority,” said Mutton. “We could see real coordination across [the Indian] government and that’s important because it has always been a challenge.”

Mutton, who has Southampton University as a client, but was not involved in the India branch campus negotiations, said he had been anticipating the announcement for some time.

“There were quite a lot of barriers in the way to it becoming a reality. Many, or all, of those barriers have now been at least addressed to get the [branch campus] licence issued,” he noted.

“Southampton is a brilliant case study, and will get the sector in the US, for example, paying attention,” Mutton said, noting his consultancy was working with a number of US universities.

“They are all focused on GIFT City at the moment because the rest of India just seemed too much like hard work. I think they will re-evaluate that now,” he added.

Location, location, location

In January this year, Australia’s Deakin University became the first foreign university to set up in India with its branch campus in GIFT City. Classes for its Masters in Business Analytics and Cybersecurity began in July. Deakin was closely followed by Australia’s Wollongong University, also in GIFT City, where the two Australian campuses are not governed by norms of the UGC.

Southampton, on the other hand, will establish its offshore campus under UGC regulations set out in India’s 2020 National Education (NEP) and which apply elsewhere in India.

“The GIFT city model is a designated area for industrial [development]. But where Southampton University is coming in is an ‘open space’ and is the first since the UGC issued its November 2023 guidelines based on the basic benchmark of being a top 500 globally ranked university,” Chetan Singai, dean of the School of Law, Governance and Public Policy at Chanakya University, Bengaluru in India’s Southern Karnataka state, told University World News.

“That’s something unique in this scenario,” he said, underlining that Southampton is ranked among the top 100 universities globally.

Singai, who was previously chief consultant to the Ministry of Education’s committee to draft the NEP, said the financial regulations in GIFT City, a Special Economic Zone established under the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) regulations, were more stringent than those under UGC rules. By contrast, Southampton’s “is more of a greenfield initiative”, he said.

Although not yet officially announced, the Southampton campus is likely to be located in Gurgaon (Gurugram), in Haryana state, part of the National Capital Region, which has good transport links to the capital. Crucially, the location allows Southampton to designate its branch campus a Delhi campus.

Singai believes the choice of Gurgaon showed a “Delhi-centric preference for North India”, while Southern India would have been “much more conducive” because it includes the technology hub of Bengaluru (Bangalore) and the top-ranked Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, Indian Institutes of Management and IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) – “which are often among the top five or six institutions in India”.

GIFT City or UGC rules?

Rohin Kapoor, partner for education and skilling at BDO India financial and management consultants, told University World News: "The Indian higher education sector was open for 100% FDI [Foreign Direct Investment] under the automatic route for all these years.

However, investment never went beyond a few million dollars due to lack of a cohesive sectoral policy framework.

“Last year, the government of India took corrective measures and permitted foreign universities and institutions to set up off-campus centres, subject to certain conditions, at GIFT City, and the rest of the country under the National Education Policy.”

However, he said: “Universities permitted to set up in GIFT City are restricted in terms of location and course offerings in comparison to universities set up under NEP”.

He said at GIFT City, course offerings are limited to financial management, fintech, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Ravneet Pawha, vice-president (global engagement) and CEO (South Asia) of Deakin University, said: “The objectives of Deakin University’s GIFT City campus align with the larger aims of the GIFT ecosystem, which is to facilitate the availability of high-end human resources for financial services and technology, addressing the growing talent demand at GIFT International Financial Services Centre, which houses over 650 registered firms.”

Pawha said: “Additionally, this initiative aims to meet the talent needs of India as it strives to become a US$35 trillion economy by 2047, also catering to the broader talent requirements of the South Asian region.”

But Singai said there were also restrictions attached to operating under the UGC.

“The challenge would be [university] autonomy, because they [Southampton] will have to run the show with the rules and regulations similar to the UGC’s, unlike Deakin which will get some sort of cushion and insulation from the conventional UGC approach,” Singai said.

The foreign UGC guidelines state that the foreign higher education institution shall not offer any programme of study that does not match standards of higher education in India.

“So now, who’s going to decide the standards of higher education in India? UGC will have its own role to play, whereas Deakin [in GiFT City] may not have this sort of constraint,” Singai said.

He said UGC regulations “can be used to curtail, or rather monitor foreign university campuses, which they [the UGC] may not be able to do under GIFT City”, noting that other universities eyeing India “will want to wait and see” how this works in practice.

Comprehensive university

Another major difference is that GIFT city, as a Special Economic Zone, is focused more on skills and teaching while the Southampton campus will be a full branch campus operating on the full “triple helix strategy”, combining teaching, research and industrial collaboration.

Andrew Atherton, vice-president (international and engagement) at the University of Southampton, said last week: “The University of Southampton Delhi will be the first comprehensive international campus in India aimed at producing world-class, work-ready graduates with specialised and transferable skills to support India’s growing knowledge economy.”

He added: “We will undertake research and knowledge exchange in partnership with local universities, industries and government and apply the results to deliver real-world social and economic impact.”

The campus will offer a broader range of programmes across undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research programmes. It will also develop a comprehensive research and knowledge exchange and enterprise activity.

Mutton said this points to a multi-disciplinary, multi-functional, academic, teaching and research campus.

“A lot of the others, particularly GIFT City, are about STEM and about business. It’s been a very narrow vision of what people thought they could do in India,” he said.

While Southampton also initially looked at setting up a campus in GIFT City, he said Southampton's research agenda was “much broader than STEM. It’s a multidisciplinary academic endeavour, and they wanted a strong research component”.

Research and innovation ecosystem

It also chimes with the Indian government’s focus on research and innovation. The country’s overarching Anusudhan National Research Foundation became operational this yearwith the aim of creating a research and innovation ecosystem around universities.

Others note the development also provides potential for Indian government funding for research-oriented universities outside the Indian Institutes of Technology which have been the focus of most government-financed research.

Pradhan, in a message on X, described the Southampton branch campus as a step towards achieving the goal of “internationalisation at home” as envisioned in NEP 2020.

“The establishment of campuses of foreign universities in India and Indian HEIs [higher education institutions] abroad is not just about expanding educational opportunities; it is about creating a vibrant ecosystem of research, knowledge exchange and global collaboration,” he posted.

He added that more and more globally-renowned institutions were showing keen interest in multi-faceted collaborations with top Indian institutions as well as in tapping the potential of India as a global education and talent hub of the future.

Lindy Cameron, British High Commissioner to India, said: “The new University of Southampton campus will be a centre of world-class education and innovation. It will also give more British students the chance to have the incredible experience of living and studying in India.”

Changed landscape

Mutton pointed out that Southampton had secured a “first mover advantage” with “everyone now knocking on their doors”, referring to interest from industry and businesses as well as research organisations.

“There’s a government rapport that's been established in Delhi now, which will be hugely helpful to a UK university,” he said, noting another UK university is likely to be next in line to announce an India branch campus.

Jaishankar, during the Southampton announcement event in Delhi, referenced key initiatives within the India-UK Road Map 2030, a bilateral agreement signed in 2021, emphasising education cooperation as a focal point.

He said a memorandum of understanding on mutual recognition of academic qualifications between the two countries had been signed earlier.

Mutton added: “I think US universities that are already talking about this … [that process is] going to be accelerated.

“We were asked by the government of India to lead a task force, which I'm spearheading, on what would have to be true for a US university to make a similar announcement to establish a full-fledged campus in India like Southampton.”

The task force includes the Embassy of India in Washington DC, a number of universities with the ambition of setting up a campus in India, third parties, such as private equity financiers who would put up the funding for a campus, as well as people who have experience of setting up campuses for universities overseas.

Singai pointed out: “The essence of the NEP is liberal arts education. But here we are seeing this sort of engagement in data science, AI, and other fields.”

He added: “It would have been good to have some of the reputed liberal arts education models coming to India in the name of internationalisation,” noting that some US universities were a better fit in that regard, offering choice and flexibility to learners.

Knock-on effect in Australia

Others said the Southampton initiative would also have a knock-on effect in Australia, particularly with the latest policy changes there, which include a cap introduced on the number of foreign students able to come to Australia.

Australian universities are beginning to think about how to work around the international student cap, Mutton noted, and one way would be campuses overseas offering Australian degrees that include a year or two in Australia.

Mutton suggested prior to the cap, the proposition of a campus in India “was solely around [enrolling] domestic students. Now, a TNE [transnational education] proposition becomes hugely attractive.

“I do expect to see more globalisation of Australian campuses. So far, all the Australian interest has gone into GIFT City,” he said.