There are many lights shin­ing through the gloom of crime and yes, the po­lit­i­cal fool­ish­ness that be­comes more patho­log­i­cal pre-elec­tions. The UWI is on­ly one light.

The fac­ul­ty, stu­dents and alum­ni of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies should feel re­as­sured by its im­proved sta­tus in the Times High­er Ed­u­ca­tion World Uni­ver­si­ty Rank­ings 2019. It was ranked 32nd among the 150 best-ranked uni­ver­si­ties across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean com­pared to 37th last year, and it main­tained the num­ber one sta­tus in the Caribbean re­gion.

The UWI has been at the fore­front of re­gion­al lead­er­ship since 1948 and its grad­u­ates have dis­tin­guished them­selves as No­bel Lau­re­ates and in­flu­encers of in­ter­na­tion­al poli­cies in fi­nance, eco­nom­ics, ju­rispru­dence, and sci­ence. It has en­dured a few undig­ni­fied la­bels over the years, in­clud­ing the de­scrip­tion “in­tel­lec­tu­al waste­land,” but the re­gion can be just­ly proud of its many achieve­ments and com­mit­ment to ex­cel­lence. The main ar­gu­ment is that its grad­u­ates should be work-ready, and at the high­er lev­els, be equipped with the knowl­edge to smart­ly steer prof­itable en­ter­pris­es or run ef­fi­cient pub­lic sec­tor in­sti­tu­tions.

Giv­en the so­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems con­fronting the re­gion, there are con­tin­u­ing de­mands for the dif­fu­sion of in­no­v­a­tive and en­tre­pre­neur­ial knowl­edge. That ex­pec­ta­tion chal­lenges its pri­ma­ry fo­cus on the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge and there­fore, es­sen­tial to its rep­u­ta­tion and brand are re­search break­throughs that trans­form in­to in­ven­tions to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life. In agri­cul­ture, ex­pec­ta­tions are for mod­els that would con­tribute to re­gion­al self-suf­fi­cien­cy in ba­sic foods more so, giv­en the is­sues of cli­mate change. In med­i­cine, the up­shot of re­search should be dis­ease pre­ven­tion and de­creased med­ical cost us­ing in­dige­nous prod­ucts.

The UWI’s ed­u­ca­tors have dis­tin­guished them­selves in out­stand­ing re­search, the pro­duc­tion of many pub­li­ca­tions and earn­ing nu­mer­ous ci­ta­tions in ecol­o­gy, ge­ol­o­gy, physics, as­tron­o­my, chem­istry, med­i­cine, and oth­er branch­es of sci­ence. It is al­so well-known for ro­bust en­gage­ment in the agri­cul­tur­al sci­ences, as well as so­cial, cul­tur­al, gen­der af­fairs, and in­dus­tri­al and com­mer­cial fields of study.

It has had no­table achieve­ments in mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gy and plant pathol­o­gy stud­ies to in­flu­ence poli­cies in the meat, agri­cul­ture, forestry and fish­eries in­dus­tries, and the pro­duc­tion of nov­el an­tibi­otics. Al­so, re­search to erad­i­cate food crop dis­eases, and it has es­tab­lished biotech­nol­o­gy and biosafe­ty pro­to­cols in CARI­COM. Of note, is its ground­break­ing work on the in­ter­con­nect­ed so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges fac­ing the re­gion.

The av­er­age per­son doesn’t as­so­ciate The UWI brand with vi­able in­no­va­tions but the pro­duc­tion of a Car­diac Sim­u­la­tor was such an achieve­ment of the Mona Cam­pus, Ja­maica, which is used by sev­er­al renowned USA teach­ing in­sti­tu­tions. The Gen­e­sis Pan (G-Pan) and elec­tric steel pan are well-known in­ven­tions by the Trinidad Cam­pus, and the Cave Hill Cam­pus had spurred Bar­ba­dos agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor through its work in the leather man­u­fac­tur­ing in­dus­try.

As part of its glob­al­i­sa­tion agen­da, it has es­tab­lished part­ner­ing cen­tres with sis­ter uni­ver­si­ties in North Amer­i­ca, Asia, La­gos and Chi­na through the UWI-Chi­na In­sti­tute of In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy. A sig­nif­i­cant ini­tia­tive was the col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the UWI Vice-Chan­cel­lor, Prof Sir Hi­lary Beck­les and the Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mi­a­mi, Prof Julio Frenk to es­tab­lish a Hemi­spher­ic Uni­ver­si­ty Con­sor­tium. Con­nect­ing high per­form­ing uni­ver­si­ties in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean would fa­cil­i­tate greater stu­dent mo­bil­i­ty and re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion across the group­ing.

The Times High­er Ed­u­ca­tion Rank­ings judge re­search-in­ten­sive uni­ver­si­ties across their core mis­sions: "teach­ing, re­search (vol­ume, in­come and rep­u­ta­tion), in­ter­na­tion­al out­look (staff, stu­dents and re­search); ci­ta­tions (re­search in­flu­ence), and in­dus­try in­come (knowl­edge trans­fer)."

The UWI Triple A Strat­e­gy 2017-2022 Re­vi­tal­is­ing Caribbean De­vel­op­ment is on-train to in­crease ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty, cre­ate knowl­edge and fos­ter in­no­va­tion for the pos­i­tive trans­for­ma­tion of the re­gion. As so­ci­eties every­where, we want so­lu­tions to en­dem­ic prob­lems such as pover­ty and crime re­duc­tion. Pri­mar­i­ly, ed­u­ca­tion must cater to re­al­i­ties of the in­for­ma­tion age—an age that is char­ac­terised not on­ly by the ex­plo­sion of ac­cess to op­por­tu­ni­ties and in­for­ma­tion but al­so the re­jec­tion of rigid­i­ty. The world is al­ready in the ear­ly stages of tran­si­tion from one phase of this tu­mul­tuous post­mod­ern era to a quan­tum sci­ence phase that has be­gun to rev­o­lu­tionise med­i­cine and man­u­fac­tur­ing.

Prof Hi­lary Beck­les and his team de­serve full cred­it for their ini­tia­tives to ad­vance The UWI agen­da as an ex­cel­lent glob­al uni­ver­si­ty root­ed in the Caribbean. We should have con­fi­dence that it can rise to the beat of new drums.