Damian Fantato takes a look behind the scenes at the Oxford Martin School, where all the big issues are pondered
 

Decorated with stone-carved Hindu gods and with its pink elephant weathercock — complete with howdah — perched on top of its cupola, it would be easy to walk past the Old Indian Institute in Broad Street and think it a throwback to the Raj.

And while the building itself certainly owes much to Britain’s long-gone imperial days the work which goes on inside is in complete contrast with this.

This month, the building became home to the Oxford Martin School which was set up by the largest donation in Oxford University’s history with the ‘simple’ task of solving all the world’s major problems.

Its ambition is to turn the building into a unique hive of intellectual activity that will put it at the centre of Oxford University and allow it to shape public policy for generations to come.

Professor Ian Goldin, the school’s director, says its unashamedly grand ambition is to influence policy and win Nobel Prizes.

He said: “We exist in order to bring great minds together to tackle some of the problems of the 21st century. We are one of the few places in the university where people build teams across disciplines.

“We have teams working on a very wide range of issues such as preventing pandemics, new forms of energy and stopping the next financial crisis. We look at the issues and build teams to solve them.

“That is pretty unique in the world. In some respects this is a revolution in Oxford.”

The academics who are part of the Oxford Martin School have to be the leaders in their fields and must be doing important work on issues of global significance for the 21st century.

Already there are teams of academics finding ways of preventing armed conflict, finding new ways of treating cancer, trying to ensure food security and finding better ways to run our cities.

Prof Goldin, a South African who was vice-president of the World Bank until 2006, said: “This is a fantastic building and it creates for the first time in our short life a real hub, what I think of as a hive where people can come together. All the fellows will have free access to the building and what we are hoping is that it will create this hive where people can swap ideas.

“We couldn’t wish for a more central space in Oxford, for a better location. We are at the heart of the university. We have got the Bodleian and the Sheldonian nearby and, because this is England, the King’s Arms across the road.”

The Old Indian Institute was designed by Basil Champneys and completed in 1896.

It was the concept of Sir Monier Monier-Williams, a professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, to train students for the Indian Civil Services.

The building was financed by private donors from Britain and India, so there was some controversy when, in 1968, the university removed its library and put it in the Bodleian, replacing it with the history faculty. This was met with protests from India and accusations of racism by Oxford University’s student union.

But, despite this, the building remained home to the history faculty until 2007, when its offices were moved to The City of Oxford High School for Boys in George Street.

By this time, James Martin was already on his way to donating £150m to Oxford University, the biggest private donation in the institution’s 900-year history.

He made his name, and his fortune, after his best-selling book The Wired Society won the Pulitzer Prize and he went on to become the highest-selling author of books on computing and related technology.

Dr Martin, who studied physics at Keble College in the 1950s, was given the Sheldon Medal in 2006, the highest honour the university can bestow.

His cumulative donation, which remains the largest to by an individual to any university in Britain, helped establish the Oxford Martin School in 2005.

Prof Goldin said: “The plaque in the entrance features a quote from James which says we can make the world we want.

“James believed that humanity is at a crossroads and that this will either be our best century or our worst because we can overcome poverty and many of the diseases that afflict humanity and live quite nice middle-class lives “There is no reason that cannot be achieved. We certainly have the brain power to achieve this but this could also be our final century because there is a whole range of really nasty diseases and climate change, a whole series of reasons why one can imagine a cascading catastophe of crises which lead to a dystopian future.

“I would say we are very optimistic because we say there is all the potential to resolve these challenges but we are not naive.

“What was interesting about James, and the reason he gave £150m in the end, was that he believed the outcome would depend on our capacity to understand the issues and to seize the opportunities, to build teams and bring people together.

“He believed something like the Oxford Martin School could make a difference.”

Unfortunately, Dr Martin died earlier this year, so never got to see the school he founded move from its temporary headquarters in Walton Well Road to its permanent home in Broad Street.

And a lot of work has gone into making that home fit for a groundbreaking school.

It has been decorated with some of the carved wooden doors — some of which lead nowhere at all — which were hidden away in storage. Other Indian artefacts which used to decorate the building have also been recovered and adorn the building and the bookshelves in the lecture theatre which once blocked the windows have been removed — revealing a stunning view down Broad Street.

The little elephant weathercock which watches over the building is going to be illuminated so passers-by will be able to spot it. But the building also has some new features, including a cafe which has been donated and designed specifically for the Oxford Martin School by the Illy family — including unique seats in the form of huge espresso cups.

Like many of Oxford’s institutions, the Oxford Martin School embodies that contradiction of painfully modern, groundbreaking work being carried out behind historic facades.

Former US Vice-President Al Gore has already visited the school’s new home and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov is dropping by today, but the little elephant weathercock remains as a reminder of the building’s past.