With Major Gift, U. of Oxford to Establish a School of Government

The University of Oxford is announcing on Monday that it will establish what it describes as Europe’s first major school of government. The new graduate school is being set up with a donation of £75-million, or $117-million, from Leonard Blavatnik, a Russian-born American businessman who has also made major gifts to universities including the University of Cambridge, Harvard and Tel Aviv Universities, and the New Economic School, in Moscow.

Oxford will create 40 new faculty posts for the Blavatnik School of Government and an international search for its first dean is under way. Beginning in 2012, the school will offer a full-time one-year master’s degree. Enrollment is expected to increase to approximately 120 within a few years, says a university news release.

Oxford’s vice chancellor, Andrew Hamilton, who recently took up the post after several years as provost of Yale University, pointed out in a statement that Oxford “has educated 26 British prime ministers and over 30 other world leaders, yet until now the major international schools of government have all been outside Europe, principally in the United States. The establishment of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford will correct that imbalance.”

The list of government leaders who have attended Oxford is long and includes the former U.S. president Bill Clinton, the late Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, the Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, and the British prime minister David Cameron. Of Britain’s 12 postwar prime ministers, only Gordon Brown attended another institution, the University of Edinburgh (two did not attend a university at all).

With Oxford’s graduates so well represented in leading government positions, both in Britain and abroad, the need to create a separate institution devoted to training future leaders is not immediately evident. But, like other leading world universities, Oxford is increasingly internationally focused, with two-thirds of its graduate students from abroad. The new school of government will reflect this global approach as it seeks to “train outstanding graduates from across the world in the skills and responsibilities of government.”

The university is augmenting Mr. Blavatnik’s gift with £26-million, or $41-million, toward the school’s establishment, and is providing the land in the university’s Radcliffe Observatory Quarter where it will be located. According to Oxford’s release, “planning has begun to design the building to house the new school.”