(The UWI, Ja­maica)—The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) and Nor­way’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen (UiB) for­malised on­go­ing col­lab­o­ra­tions with the sign­ing of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing on Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 13.

In this MOU, the two uni­ver­si­ties com­mit­ted to ad­vanc­ing re­search and ac­tion on the Unit­ed Na­tion’s Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals 13 (Cli­mate ac­tion) and 14 (Life Be­low Wa­ter).

The sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny aboard the Nor­we­gian, Stat­sraad Lehmkuhl train­ing ves­sel docked at Ja­maica’s Port Roy­al, was among the high­lights of a wel­come re­cep­tion host­ed by the Nor­we­gian Am­bas­sador, H.E. Beate Stiro, for the crew of One Ocean Ex­pe­di­tion.

The One Ocean Ex­pe­di­tion’s his­toric 55,000-mile world voy­age, which be­gan in Au­gust 2021, is or­gan­ised by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen, and recog­nised as part of the UN Decade of Ocean Sci­ence for Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment. The float­ing acad­e­my com­pris­es stu­dents, teach­ing and re­search fac­ul­ty as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sci­en­tif­ic and de­vel­op­ment in­sti­tu­tions.

Its Ja­maica port stop is the fruition of an al­most two-year plan­ning event and cul­mi­na­tion of con­ver­sa­tions be­tween The UWI and UiB with­in the con­text of the col­lab­o­ra­tive frame­work of the Glob­al Uni­ver­si­ty Con­sor­tium on SDG-13.

The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and Norway’s University of Bergen (UiB) formalised ongoing collaborations with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Saturday, November 13. UiB’s Professor Kerim Nisancioglu and The UWI’s Dr. Stacy Richards-Kennedy display sign copies of the MOU. (Image courtesy The UWI)

The One Ocean Ex­pe­di­tion is a demon­stra­tion of The UWI’s glob­al part­ner­ships in ac­tion. Com­ment­ing on the col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen, Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor Glob­al Af­fairs, at The UWI,

Dr. Sta­cy Richards-Kennedy stat­ed, “The UWI is very proud of its part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen. Our strate­gic al­liance, as lead in­sti­tu­tions for SDG-13 and SDG-14, is al­ready cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­creased teach­ing and re­search col­lab­o­ra­tions for fac­ul­ty and stu­dents, new dis­cov­er­ies and re­search ap­pli­ca­tions in ma­rine sci­ence and glob­al ad­vo­ca­cy on the chal­lenges faced by Caribbean is­lands that are on the front­line of the cli­mate cri­sis”.

Sig­na­to­ry on be­half of UiB, Pro­fes­sor Ker­im Ni­san­cioglu stat­ed, “By join­ing forces, the two uni­ver­si­ties will so­lid­i­fy our joint lead­er­ship in cli­mate and ocean sci­ence and fur­ther strength­en our ef­forts to ful­fil the goals set by the UN Agen­da 2030.”

Among ini­tia­tives on the hori­zon for the two uni­ver­si­ties in­clude cre­at­ing a new mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary Caribbean re­search pro­gramme on ocean sci­ence and cli­mate ac­tion; strength­en­ing link­ages for North-South and South-South re­search ad­vo­ca­cy and part­ner­ships be­tween Nor­way, the Caribbean and the South Pa­cif­ic to ad­vance ocean sci­ence, cli­mate ac­tion, sci­ence diplo­ma­cy and the glob­al pol­i­cy im­pact agen­da. The work pro­gramme in­volves ex­plor­ing the cre­ation of a net­work of ocean lead­ers of the fu­ture, through a unique UWI-UiB Grad­u­ate Re­search Trainee Pro­gramme for re­search train­ing, knowl­edge ex­change and prac­ti­cal-based in­tern­ships with aca­d­e­m­ic, in­dus­try or civ­il so­ci­ety part­ners in Nor­way, the Caribbean and the Pa­cif­ic.

The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and Norway’s University of Bergen (UiB) formalised ongoing collaborations with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on Saturday, November 13. UiB’s Professor Kerim Nisancioglu and The UWI’s Dr. Stacy Richards-Kennedy display their signed copies of the MOU. (Image courtesy The UWI)

The nur­tur­ing of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween UWI and UiB be­gan in 2018 through their mem­ber­ship of In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Uni­ver­si­ties and con­tin­ues to evolve. The two have joint­ly host­ed High-lev­el Po­lit­i­cal Fo­rums on Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment as well as a range of rec­i­p­ro­cal fac­ul­ty sem­i­nars.

The One Ocean Ex­pe­di­tion in­cludes two post­grad­u­ate re­searchers from The UWI Mona Cam­pus—Chauntelle Green from the De­part­ment of Life Sci­ences, and Deron Mait­land from the De­part­ment of Physics. From Sep­tem­ber-Oc­to­ber 2021, they were en­rolled in a One Ocean Field Course we­bi­nar se­ries, co­or­di­nat­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen, which al­so fea­tured fac­ul­ty ex­perts, Pro­fes­sor Ju­dith Gob­in and Dr Michael Burn from The UWI’s St. Au­gus­tine and Mona and Cam­pus­es re­spec­tive­ly, as fa­cil­i­ta­tors.

On Tues­day, No­vem­ber 16th, the Mona Cam­pus hosts a con­tin­gent of 33 par­tic­i­pants from the ship for a tour of the Cam­pus’ Port Roy­al Ma­rine Lab, fol­lowed by a Knowl­edge Ex­change Fo­rum host­ed by the Fac­ul­ty of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy. 

For more about the One Ocean Ex­pe­di­tion, vis­it the Ex­pe­di­tion web­site https://oneo­cean­ex­pe­di­tion.com/.