Newcastle makes Anant Ambani a sustainability professor

Newcastle University made Anant Ambani a professor of practice in sustainability on Sept. 14, and has spent the past ten days defending the decision.

Ambani is 31 and the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani, India’s wealthiest man. He sits on the executive board of Reliance Industries as its lead on green energy, a group that built its fortune on oil and gas and owns the largest refinery complex in the world at Jamnagar in Gujarat.

A professorship of practice is not a research post. Universities award them to practitioners rather than academics, usually part-time, in recognition of work done outside the academy.

Newcastle said the title recognised Ambani’s contributions to conservation, biodiversity protection, animal welfare and environmental stewardship through Vantara, his wildlife rescue initiative, and his role leading Reliance’s shift towards green energy.

Academics and conservationists did not accept it.

Ramachandra Guha, the Indian historian and author of a book on the origins of Indian environmentalism, called it “a rather mystifying choice” and said he could name at least fifty, and perhaps a hundred, people better qualified for the honour. Bhuvan Mangalore, an investigator of illegal wildlife trade who is writing a dissertation on Vantara at Anglia Ruskin University, asked: “Is this a joke?”

Matt Perry, who chairs the University and College Union branch at Newcastle, said staff had objected on environmental grounds. Lyla Mehta, a professor working on the same questions, warned that falling public funding leaves British higher education open to being reshaped by billionaire and corporate money.

Vantara is the reason the appointment is contested. It occupies 1,400 hectares, about 3,500 acres, next to the family’s refinery operations in Gujarat, and houses rescued animals including elephants, big cats and reptiles.

Conservation groups have raised questions about how some of those animals were obtained, particularly endangered species brought in from abroad. Vantara has never been found guilty of any wrongdoing. It has since appointed a former head of CITES, the international convention governing trade in endangered species, to oversee its operations, and voluntarily suspended wildlife imports until June 2026.

Representatives for Vantara and the Ambani family said their mission and focus remains the rescue, rehabilitation and care of animals.

Ambani launched Vantara University in April, describing it as the first global university dedicated to wildlife conservation and veterinary science.

The family’s politics form part of the criticism. Mukesh Ambani has publicly supported the policies of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, and companies connected to Reliance have made substantial donations to it, which critics say complicates any environmental credential granted to the family by a foreign institution.