Samir Saran

Samir Saran is President of the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi. He provides strategic direction and leadership to ORF's multiple centers on fund raising, research projects, platform design and outreach initiatives including stakeholder engagement. Saran also curates the Raisina Dialogue, India's annual flagship platform on geopolitics and geo-economics, and chairs CyFy, India’s annual conference on cyber security and internet governance. He spearheads the Foundation’s efforts to foster new international partnerships and globalise its platforms.

Before becoming President, Saran led ORF's outreach and business development as its Vice President. In this capacity, he was responsible for fostering government outreach, global partnerships, and developing ORF into a centre for research excellence in policy.

Saran is a frequent commentator on issues of global governance and is featured regularly in Indian and international print and broadcast media. Some of his academic publications include India’s Climate Change Identity: Between Reality and Perception; New Norms for a Digital Society; India’s Contemporary Plurilateralism in Oxford University Press Handbook on India’s Foreign Policy; Navigating the Digital Trilemma” in the latest CyFy Digital Debates, of which he is the editor; and New Room to Manoeuvre: An Indian Approach to Climate Change. Samir's doctoral studies were on Indian attitudes towards climate change at the Global Sustainability Institute, UK.

Saran is Commissioner, The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, and member of the South Asia advisory board of the World Economic Forum as well as part of its Global Future Council on Cybersecurity. He is Director of the Centre for Peace and Security at the Sardar Patel Police University, Jodhpur, India.