The University of Southampton intends to establish three branch campuses by 2030, with India hosting the first. The locations for the other two campuses have yet to be determined.
With its existing campuses in Southampton and Malaysia, these new additions will expand the university’s footprint to five countries, strengthening its global engagement.
“A key part of our strategy as a university is to establish three new campuses by 2030,” revealed Andrew Atherton, the university’s vice-president (international and engagement), while speaking at the QS Reimagine Education conference in London.
“We genuinely feel global at the heart of our DNA as an institution. One of the key drivers for us about setting up and effectively having five countries that we will be engaged in is to build a multi-modal institution.
“That will drive culture change, it will drive change in terms of values. Staff will work in and across those campuses. Students, if they choose to, will be mobile across those campuses,” said Atherton.
What it means is it permeates – if we’re successful – an ethos or a DNA of understanding or seeing something from multiple perspectives
Andrew Atherton, University of Southampton
“When you start thinking about this in terms of organisational processes, in terms of organisational value, in terms of understanding and awareness right the way through the institution… What it means is it permeates – if we’re successful – an ethos or a DNA of understanding or seeing something from multiple perspectives. That’s what a multi-modal institution can do which is hugely rich for research and hugely rich for insight for education and learning for students.”
For Atherton, such an ethos also helps to foster “incredibly mobile” graduates who are prepared to have global careers, working and thriving in multinational, multicultural, multilinguistic teams.
Southamptons plans to set up in India were revealed earlier this year. More recently, it was announced that Southampton’s India campus will be located at the International Tech Park in Gurgaon, a financial hub in the North Indian state of Haryana, with the first intake of students set for August 2025.
