August 2015


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The Editor’s Notebook – The Progressive Momentum

The theme of this month’s UWI Today - innovation and change - arose organically as features on events came to the editor’s desk: an application has been created; winning new ideas have emerged from global competition; a variety of UWI associated people have been rewarded with positions for new contributions; the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon interacted with regional youth on matters surrounding their fresh perspectives on issues and a small cross-section of conferences reflected on how to propel their respective developmental agendas with out-of-the-box thinking.

Also carrying that programme of innovation and change this month is the Campus Principal’s message that is previewing the St Augustine South Campus at Penal-Debe. The overall trajectory of events lends itself to widely accepted definitions of what are progress and growth – developments that improve the quality of lives and uplift the conditions of newly encountered ones. This feels like the momentum an institution of higher education is supposed to have and while that can hold true maybe for any service organization, a balance must be sought that ensures while in the pursuit of staying relevant, the core definition of institutional self is preserved.

It was serendipitous that as these reflections were being written an email arrived from St. Clair King, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Engineering, on the very topic. It provided a different, institutional perspective on the topic of innovation that simply, complemented all the developments detailed in this month’s UWI Today and while he has been invited to write a full article on the subject of what are the parameters of ‘innovation’ for The UWI, it is in seeking to balance perspectives that some of his key points are mentioned now.

Professor King said an Institutional interpretation of innovation is can be obtained from The UWI’s strategic plan for its contribution to diversifying regional economies and making select products and services commercial – that can all compete globally. In the pursuit of this goal, a Research and Innovation Committee was set up – that he chaired – which began its work by reviewing how to move regional economies away from agriculture into manufacturing and the provision of value-added goods and services. The Committee concluded that The UWI has to partner with governments and regional institutions. He said in his note, “Etzkowitz in his Triple Helix, showed us that for this diversification by innovation to work there has to be close collaboration among the R&D institutions, the government and the private sector- driven by the governments of the region. The Committee’s consultant introduced the idea of the Innovation Diamond that defined the interrelationship among the R&D institutions (centres of excellence), the financing system, the market development and marketing, the creation and support of SMEs and the protection and management of the ensuing Intellectual Property. The crucial recognition was that UWI, operating on its own, creating IP, in regional economies in which there was an absence of funding and venture capital with a risk averse private sector, cannot make any significant impact on their diversification. Hence UWI should encourage the regional governments and institutions (CDB, CARICOM) to create these innovation systems with adequate long term risk financing.”

Professor King went on to say that a progressive momentum can be supported by The UWI but its current structure as an institution whose primary activities are in the domain of higher education, does not lean towards leadership in this area. He added that the Committee recommended that for UWI to adapt, it should create specialist centres of excellence and that the innovation systems, of which UWI can be part, need to be more broadly structured. This is clearly a conversation that is to be continued.