Roland Anthony Oliver FBA (30 March 1923 – 9 February 2014) was an Indian-born English academic and Emeritus Professor of African history at the University of London.
Throughout a long career he was an eminent researcher, writer, teacher, administrator and organiser, who had a profound effect on the development of African Studies in the United Kingdom.
Following his undergraduate and doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge between 1941 and 1948, Roland Oliver joined the staff of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, where he was successively Lecturer, Reader and Professor until his retirement in 1986.
In 1953, 1957 and 1961 he organised international conferences on African history and archaeology, which did much to establish the subject as an academic discipline.
In 1963, he carried out a survey of 250 working Africanist academics in the United Kingdom and founded the African Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK) itself.