My role
As Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Global Engagement and Employability, my primary role is to lead and coordinate internationalisation, educational provision and business engagement to enhance the employability of our students and the delivery of priorities in Inclusion and Sustainable Development for the University of Westminster.
I am responsible for ensuring our University is a global institution, promoting a culture of global engagement across the University, championing a wide range of international activities to build on our international connections, internationalising the Westminster experience for our students from diverse backgrounds, ensuring sustainable international recruitment, and supporting structures and practices that value our international students and alumni, all as part of Global Engagement Strategy. As the DVC leading the University's Employability agenda, I am accountable for developing and delivering our Employability Strategy in collaboration with colleagues across the University. In addition to making Employability integral to education, the focus here is on strong community, public, institutional and business relations that increase mentoring, skills development, internship, placement, and employment opportunities for our students from diverse backgrounds.
The University of Westminster is a highly plural and multicultural community, located in a world city, with students and colleagues from across the globe. This shapes our values, and we want to ensure everyone feels valued and confident in bringing their whole selves to study and work. My top priority is to ensure that all students gain global experience and competitiveness, with special support for home students from widening participation backgrounds and international students. I am keen to strengthen and further our network of international connections that the University enjoys, which enriches the cultural and intellectual life of our institution. My focus is on consolidating and expanding our relations and partnerships.
I have high-level responsibility for leading our ambitious Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion strategy and programme and coordinating our institutional commitment to Sustainable Development. I am passionate about promoting values in, and the value of, British Higher Education sector.
Background
A professor in politics and international relations, I have been the Head of School of Social Sciences (2018–2023)), Head of Department (2013–18) and Research Director (2010–13) ) of Politics and International Relations at the University of Westminster. Before joining the University in 2007 as a Reader in the Centre for the Study of Democracy, I was an ESRC postdoctoral fellow (2002–03) and a Lecturer (2003–07) at the University of Bath. My PhD is from the University of Bristol (1998–2002), ), MA in International Law and Politics from the University of Hull (1997-98) and BA in History (Honours) from St Stephen’s College, Delhi University. I came from India and made Britain my home. In recent years, in addition to my usual areas of academic research in politics and international relations, I have focused on issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion in the higher education sector.
Research
I have shifted places and disciplines, I have experienced elite and non-elite as well as religious and secular education, and I engage with concepts as much as with everyday politics. What has remained consistent so far is my desire to produce scholarship that is meaningful to groups and peoples who are often marginalised, minoritised, occupied and suppressed. This desire comes across in my research, academic writings and public engagement on topics including colonial practices of postcolonial states; China, Tibet and Xinjiang; Hindu nationalism in India; politics and international relations of stateless Tibetans; politics of gender, security and representation; ethnic relations in Zanzibar; emergence of China and India as major non-Western powers; contested nature of nation-state formations in China and South Asia.
I have authored the monographs "Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination", ''Tibet: A Victim of Geopolitics", and "Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of Fear", co-edited "Contemporary Colonialities: Kurds and Kashmiris", and published a number of chapters in edited collections and articles in journals. The easiest way to locate my publications is through my Academia page.
I have a significant presence in popular media and a Google search for my name links to a range of forums, including comment articles in The Guardian, YouTube videos, cited expert views in newspapers of the USA, UK, China, India and Singapore, and blogs. I have held visiting positions at the University of California Berkeley, Australian National University, Centre for Bhutan Studies, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Central University of Hyderabad and delivered plenary talks, lectures and seminar papers at institutions in USA, Europe, India, Bhutan, China, Russia, Pakistan, Canada, Singapore, and Australia.
External roles
Currently, I am the Co-Chair of London Higher's EDI Network, a member of Research England’s EDI Expert Advisory Group, and a Co-Chair of Universities UK-Advance HE DVC Network