Oxford Round Table - Conferences

Conferences

The first meeting of the Oxford Round Table was held at St. Peter's College in 1989, sponsored by the Norham Centre for Leadership Studies of the University of Oxford under the direction of Vivian Williams and by Virginia Tech, under the direction of Kern Alexander. The organisation brings together scholars and others from a variety of backgrounds (new professors and PhD students, college presidents and deans, school administrators, religious leaders) to discuss research on specific topics usually related to public policy. In its early years, the conference was held every other year, and the organization financed the attendance of participants by raising funds itself (more than £80,000 in 1993).

One of the earliest conferences, in 1993, was on the links between education and the business sector. It brought together education ministers from major developing and transition countries, representatives of major multinationals (such as Apple, Boeing, BP, and Honeywell), U.S. state officials, and the World Bank. A major highlight was a paper by Edward Dneprov, education minister of Russia, on education reform there. A 1993 article in the Times Higher Education Supplement noted that "the Oxford conferences are going very well" and had gained "international interest."

In 2008, there were 25 scheduled sessions of the conference—ten in March and fifteen in July/August.