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Strengthening our partnerships in India

23 May 2023
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A group of people looking at the camera and smiling.

In May we celebrated our long-standing partnership with the Maharaja Sayajirao University (MS University) of Baroda.

We welcomed Professor Vijay Kumar Srivastava, Vice Chancellor MSU Baroda, and Professor Dhanesh Patel (Director, Office of International Affairs) to Durham for a two-day visit. The visit closely follows our delegation to India in March and provided an opportunity for Professor Srivastava and Professor Patel to visit our state-of-the-art archaeology labs and our extensive collections. 

Ongoing partnership 

MS University Baroda last visited Durham in 2009 when we signed our Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which was renewed in 2020 in acknowledgement of our ongoing partnership. Our Department of Archaeology has particularly strong links with MS University Baroda through our student and faculty exchanges, internships and joint research project work. 

Some of our most notable work with MS University Baroda includes: 

  • A UKIERI funded project focusing on Promoting sustainable pilgrimage and the protection of heritage sites in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (2017)  
  • In August 2019 our Oriental Museum and MS University Baroda jointly hosted a group of graduate students who are researching the Marshall photographic archive. Created by Sir John Marshall, a former Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, this archive is a vitally important visual resource for researchers working upon the archaeology and early historic monuments of South Asia. 
  • In spring 2020 undergraduate students from MSU Baroda completed internships with us 

Broadening our partnership 

Our current MoU with MS University Baroda is University-wide and our partnership also offers collaborative opportunities for our School of Education, as well as new opportunities with our Department of Archaeology. 

These collaborative opportunities include common areas of research strengths, including ancient urbanism, heritage and climate change, political sociology and philosophy; electoral studies, foreign policy analysis, and public administration. As well as MSU’s UGC Centre for Advanced Studies in Education which is an inter University Centre for Teaching Education and an Experimental training centre. 

A globally connected University 

Durham University is a globally outstanding centre of teaching and research excellence, a collegiate community of extraordinary people, a unique and historic setting – Durham is a university like no other. We work in partnership with research institutions around the world, to share and grow global knowledge. Visit our Study With Us and our World-wide Research and Partnerships pages to find out more about life at Durham.