Nuffield College, Oxford

**Nuffield College**
	Colleges and halls of the University of Oxford; Nuffield College
College name	Nuffield College
Named after	William Morris, Lord Nuffield
Established	1937
Sister college	None
Warden	Andrew Dilnot
Undergraduates	None
Graduates	74
	; Location of Nuffield College within central OxfordCoordinates: 51°45′10″N 1°15′47″W / 51.752834°N 1.262917°W
	College website
Blazon	Ermine on a fesse or between in chief two roses gules barbed and seeded proper and in base a balance of the second three pears sable.

Nuffield College /ˈnʌfiːld/ is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is an all-graduate college and primarily a research establishment, specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Despite being one of the newest and smallest of the colleges, its architecture is designed to conform to the traditional college layout, and its modernist spire is a landmark for those approaching Oxford from the west.

As of 2006, the college had an estimated financial endowment of £146m.^[1] This makes it the fourth richest Oxford college by assets, despite its small size.^[2]

History and buildings[edit]

Nuffield College is a graduate college of the University of Oxford specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics (especially psephology), and sociology. It aims to provide a stimulating research-oriented environment for postgraduate students (about 75 in number) and faculty (approximately 60 academic fellows). The college, which was founded in 1937, is located on a site on the western side of Oxford city centre. The land on which the college stands, which was formerly the city's principal canal basin and coal wharfs, was donated to the university by William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield (Lord Nuffield). Restrictions on construction after the Second World War meant that work on the college was not completed until 1960.

The library tower and spire seen from New Road.

The original plan for the college to occupy land on both sides of Worcester Street was scaled down as a result of budget and material shortages, and to this day the land to the west of the college is occupied by a "temporary" car park. The college buildings were designed by Austen Harrison, whose plans were approved by Lord Nuffield in 1940. Construction of the college began in 1949, and was completed in 1960. The architectural aesthetic of the final design, particularly the tower and its fleche (small spire), has attracted some criticism; unlike the other "dreaming spires" of Oxford, Nuffield's tower is a masonry-clad steel-framed book-stack, housing the college library.

From its inception, Nuffield College initiated a number of trends at both Oxford and Cambridge.^[3] It was the first college to have both women and men housed together. It was also the first college to consist solely of graduate students. In addition, it was the first in modern times to have a defined subject focus, namely, the social sciences.

Research[edit]

Around a third of Nuffield's fellows hold appointments at the University of Oxford as lecturers, readers or professors. In addition, the college fully funds around a dozen Official Fellowships, which the College views as tenured research professorships (although most also teach on the University's graduate programme), and about a dozen three year post-doctoral research fellows. The college also houses a number of young scholars who hold distinguished awards, such as British Academy post-doctoral fellowships, some senior research fellows and a group of research-active emeritus and honorary fellows. The collection also produces works in the Nuffield Election Studies.

The college has been the source of some of the major research developments in social science. These include the British Election Studies and the major programme of research on Social Mobility in Britain. It was the birthplace of the "Oxford School" of Industrial Relations; it pioneered the development of cost benefit analysis for developing countries; and it has made a major contribution to the methodology of econometrics.

People associated with Nuffield[edit]

Wardens[edit]

Sir Harold Butler 1938–45
Sir Henry Clay 1945–49
Alexander Loveday 1949–54
Sir Norman Chester 1954–78
Michael Brock 1978–88
Sir David Cox 1988–94
Sir Anthony Atkinson 1994–2006
Stephen Nickell CBE 2006–2012
Andrew Dilnot CBE 2012–present

Former students and fellows[edit]

Main article: List of Nuffield College people

A number of prominent people have studied at Nuffield including; Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, Geoffrey Gallop, former Premier of Western Australia and Nicholas Stern, economist and future President of the British Academy.