UCL India Summer School

Based at the state-of-the-art campus of The British School New Delhi (and now in its 2nd year), the 2025 UCL India Summer School will give pre-university students in India a taste of what it’s like to study at a world-leading UK university. The summer school aims to widen access to education by bringing UCL professors to India from London. It is open to current Grade 11 students in India (current at the point of application), who will gain from a rigorous and exciting curriculum.

For any enquiries, please contact vpee.indiasummerschool@ucl.ac.uk.

The closing date for applications is Friday 28 February 2025. Places will be offered to qualified applicants on a first-come-first-served basis - as such the earliest possible application is strongly advised.

Apply now for 2025

• Where and when
• Cost
• Teaching and learning
• On completion
• Eligibility
• 2024 student voices / Look back on 2024

Where and when

• Dates: Monday 2 June – Saturday 7 June 2025
• Timings: 9am-4pm week days (Saturday 11am-2pm)
• Location: The British School New Delhi, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi 110021

Cost

UCL’s India Summer School is a non-profit, access-to-education programme that marks our desire to engage with India in a spirit of partnership. The Summer School fee for the 2025 programme is INR 40,000. This fee is set as low as possible, covering cost only. The fee is payable in rupees directly to The British School New Delhi. No profits accrue to either The British School New Delhi or UCL.

Teaching and learning

Our cutting edge, multi-disciplinary teaching programme will be taught in person by professors travelling to India from London for one week. The Summer School requires participants to think creatively, across disciplines, and to apply high-level knowledge and analysis to solving real-world problems. Students receive immersive seminar teaching (class sizes capped at 12) in their chosen pathway subject.

Students can choose from the following pathways: 

Globalisation and Technology

Pathway Lead: Dr Alka Raman
Lecturer in Social and Economic History (since 1500), Dept of History

The Indian economy has enjoyed a pivotal position within trans-continental networks of commercial and cultural exchange since antiquity. At the epicentre of global trade for several centuries, today India has become the pharmaceutical, chemicals, and IT giant of the modern world. India’s economic growth has long been connected to global trade facilitated by a highly skilled and educated population and India maintains a legacy of significant economic, technological as well as cultural contributions to the world; yet, problems of poverty and extreme inequality remain. 

This pathway deploys an economic history lens to investigate some of these areas by asking:

• What were the founding principles of India’s economic growth in the 18th century? What was the competitive advantage of Indian manufacturing processes of the time?
• What was the ‘Industrial Revolution’, which triggered modern economic growth globally?
• Why didn’t the industrial revolution happen in India?
• What is economic globalisation and how has it changed over time? 
• What does economic history tell us about areas of India’s economic strength within the global economy and the historically verified strategies it can deploy for economic success?
• What does India’s current economic ascendency tell us about the role of technology and economic growth?
• How can India’s future economic growth become more technologically resilient?

This pathway will unpack technological and manufacturing techniques, examine India’s current economic performance from a global perspective and extract insights from its economic history to identify directions for economic growth and resilience. Students will examine sectoral growth within textile manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, gemstones industries, and IT to evaluate and consider successful economic strategies. To conclude, we will discuss technological resilience as a pathway for sustainable economic growth.

Law and Ethics

Pathway Lead: Dr Isra Black
Associate Professor in Law and Vice Dean (International) in the Faculty of Laws

This pathway introduces and explores the disciplines of law and philosophy, with a focus on ethical questions raised in the context of health. Many branches of law and fundamental questions of ethics meet in the realm of human health, literally matters of life and death. The pathway will introduce you to different sources of legal rules (e.g. legislation, case law, human/constitutional rights) in different domains of law (e.g. public, criminal, private). We will look at how these rules are produced and employed by different legal actors (e.g. courts, legislators, litigants). In addition to developing your understanding of how law works, you will gain an evaluative perspective on ethics - how we identify what values and considerations matter and how we decide what we ought to do. 

Using examples from English and Indian law, we will explore questions such as:

• Does law succeed in discharging its function as a tool for ‘settling’ matters of ethics?
• Why is it not a crime for doctors to perform surgery?
• Why does the law value consent? And why care about consent to medical treatment? What should we do when people can’t give consent?
• How much choice should we give people about the manner and moment of their own death? Should there be a right to medical assistance to die?
• When might we permit (living) people to sell their organs or tissues for transplantation and who might we allow to buy?
• Would you choose lockdown or vaccine mandate, both, or neither, during an infectious disease pandemic?

No prior knowledge of law, ethics/philosophy, or health care/public health is required. All you need is curiosity about and an enthusiasm for discussion of issues that affect everyone in important ways over their lives, and about which there is enduring ethical and legal disagreement about what to do and how to do it.
 

Economics and Health

Pathway Lead: Professor Jolene Skordis
Professor of Health and Development Economics, Institute for Global Health + Vice-Dean (International) for the Faculty of Population Health Sciences, Director of UCL’s Centre for Global Health Economics, Deputy Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health and Vice Chair of the European Global Health Research Institutes Network

What can the discipline of economics tell us about which populations survive and thrive? Consider this: in the year 2020, almost 95% of all maternal deaths occurred in low and lower middle-income countries. In India, for example, a woman is seven times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in the UK. A child in India is also seven times more likely to die before their 5th birthday than a child in the UK. However, if you think this is simply about rich countries having more doctors, the death rate among children under five in the USA is 50% higher than the death rate of children under five in the UK.  Both are ‘rich countries’, but their children have a very different risk of dying before their fifth birthday.  In fact, life expectancy in the USA is only 76.4 years.  That is equal to Albania and Algeria, which are classified as middle-income countries.  That is also four years less than life expectancy in the UK.

What is going on here? Why do we see these differences between countries and importantly, how can we improve the lives of women and children in countries like India? Some of the questions we will consider include:

• How does the field of economics help us understand these risks?
• How does inequality lead to mortality?
• What policies would you introduce to improve the life chances of people in India?

You don’t need to know anything about economics or medicine.  You only need to be curious about the people and the communities around you. You will learn to unpack problems, use data and economics methodologies to identify cause and effect in complex systems, and start to suggest evidence-informed solutions.

Climate Change and the Future City

Pathway Lead: Professor Priti Parikh
Professor of Infrastructure Engineering and International Development, The Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction + Director of the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction (BSSC)

Currently around 49% of people in India live in slums or informal settlements in cities. They are the key engines and workforce of cities and bear the double burden of poor housing and infrastructure, as well as the adverse impacts of climate change. Climate change is a reality and is now a crisis reflected in summers which are hotter, and in erratic rainfall patterns. This seminar series will reflect on vulnerable communities in India’s cities with a view to addressing those challenges for the cities of the future. We will receive a visit from community leaders on Day 1 and then reflect on the following questions:

• What are the day-to-day lived experiences of people living in slums?
• How are slums currently coping with poor housing and infrastructure, combined with climate impacts?
• What are the key priorities and needs of communities from a built environment perspective?
• Why does climate justice matter?
• How can our future cities become more climate resilient and equitable?

We will consider the day-to-day lived experiences of residents who live in poor housing stock with limited infrastructure services. As part of this exercise, we will think about which services are most important to slum dwellers to make a case for funding. We will also examine the benefits of good infrastructure, built environment, and sustainability and the intersections of these with climate change. Drawing on Professor Parikh’s own experiences of attending the last four United Nations' COP summits, student will undertake a group activity on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), enabling students to explore the possible benefits of improving living conditions in slums on health, education, environment, income, and poverty reduction. 

Understanding the Human Brain

Pathway Lead: Professor James Kilner
Professor of Human Motor Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology

This pathway will introduce students to key principles and current theories about how our brains work, as well as conceptual issues, methodological approaches, and significant findings in the study of the human brain, their historical background, and the kinds of empirical evidence on which these findings are based. 

Each seminar will be framed by a simple question, such as:

• What are the basic building blocks of the human brain?
• How does the brain ‘sample’ the world?
• How do we move and interact with our environments?
• Is the brain a complicated ‘prediction machine’?

To begin answering such questions, participants in the pathways will engage with fMRI, EEG and MEG as well exploring machine learning approaches to big data sets, and how they have changed the study of the human brain. 

You will learn about how the human brain enables us to sense and perceive the world, how we move, how we communicate, and how we interact with each other. You will study the human brain by developing an understanding of what happens when there are disorders of our nervous system, for example, Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia. 

You will also learn about the difficulties we face in studying the human brain and the different methods, techniques and tools of analysis that have been developed to help us overcome or meet such challenges.
 

Medical Sciences and AI

Pathway Lead: Professor Darren Player
Associate Professor in Musculoskeletal Bioengineering, Division of Surgery and Interventional Science

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now embedded into many aspects of our lives, whether we recognise it, or not. Using GPTs to help generate lists or correct grammar for emails is one thing, but can AI really be trusted to support the diagnosis and treatment of patients? Surgical robots powered by AI are now a reality, helping surgeons to conduct procedures in ways that would not be possible before. But it is not just the use of AI in medicine and surgery that has been transformational; it is now being used to accelerate research in the medical sciences. From the use of Machine Learning in bioinformatics, to the generation of human-like avatars to support rehabilitation, AI is being used in research to fast-track the development of new diagnostics and therapies for patients.

You will be surprised to know that to use many of these tools, you do not need a PhD in coding or computer science. As long you have a passion for science and technology and a ‘can do’ attitude, the world of AI is accessible to you. In this pathway, you will be introduced to some of the latest AI tools and technologies that are being used in medical sciences. You will also have a chance to develop your own AI-enabled solution in an area that excites you the most.

Some of the questions that we will consider include:

• Can AI replace doctors?
• How can AI be used to develop new drugs?
• Are there any dangers or concerns over the use of AI in medicine?
• What is the future of AI in medical sciences research?

This pathway will challenge you to think differently about the use of AI and to consider the positives, but also the many challenges. You will debate questions around ethics, informed consent, and also the financial implications for the use of AI tools in medicine. AI-enabled healthcare is here, but there is still a long road ahead to ensure that doctors and patients across the world can benefit from its true potential.
 

All students will also benefit from a range of study skills, careers, and alumni engagement sessions.

On completion

In addition to their academic tuition, all students will receive a certificate of participation.

The summer school programme will culminate on Saturday morning with student presentions based on their work in the pathways, and a valedictory lunch event for family, friends, and professors.

Eligibility

• UCL India summer school is for current grade 11s at the point of application (prior to 28 Feb 2025).
• Grade 10 board exams (or equivalent) must have been sat in 2024. 
• Full, official grade 10 transcript must be supplied with the application. 
• Admission is by merit, based on grade 10 public examination results or equivalent (e.g. IGCSE or IB 'middle years programme' results).
• For admission to the UCL India Summer School 2025, the minimum average overall score in grade 10 public examination is 90%, with a minimum 90% mark in English.
• The UCL India Summer School is non-residential.

2024 student voices

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