July 2016


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By the time you read this, the official transition would have been made and Professor Brian Copeland is now the eighth Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the St. Augustine Campus of The UWI. Prof Copeland succeeds Professor Clement Sankat who held the position of Campus Principal from 2008 to June 30, 2016. Professor Copeland offered some insight into his philosophies of leadership as he spoke with UWI TODAY Editor, Vaneisa Baksh, before assuming the helm.

The new Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal at UWI St. Augustine, Professor Brian Copeland, cuts an unassuming figure as he moves about the Campus with his knapsack on his back, his laptop enclosed for safekeeping and easy access.

It is not a sight associated with any of the previous Campus Principals. But Professor Copeland is a first in many other ways as well – he is the first Campus Principal who was awarded the Order of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (ORTT) in 2008 by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for his work as an innovator. The year before that he was part of the team receiving the Chaconia Medal Gold for Music Innovation and in 2002, he got the Prime Minister’s Award for Innovation.

As he takes the helm for the first time, one aspect of the Professor’s vision is his desire to infuse the spirit of innovation-based entrepreneurship throughout the Campus community. He knows that there is ambivalence towards this as many academics are worried that this push toward innovation and entrepreneurship will result in a reduction of research activity. To him, there is no dilemma because both activities are complementary.

“One feeds the other and if you do your innovation and entrepreneurship well, you will find that it [the research] is better funded.” He says that in the Caribbean region, public and private sector contributions to research are way below the world standard. His goal is to commercialize the research so that it becomes profitable – to get to a place where every two years, at least one start-up company comes out of this Campus. This will provide funds to do more research while making a positive impact on the regional economic space through the creation of new highly competitive companies, he says.

He knows that it will not be easy sailing, and mistakes will be made before the University acquires the experience and the culture of a profit-making institution. He believes guidance can be found by examining the income-earning models of other universities. He is big on the concept of developing homegrown solutions as a means of nurturing the local and regional human capacity to innovate and to engage in innovation-based entrepreneurship.

In this context, he has very strong concerns about the ownership of intellectual property, which is an aspect of him wanting the University, staff and students to retain as much control as possible over the implementation and commercial exploitation of ideas, systems and processes.

“If we could partner with somebody and accelerate it, no problem, but we must be the ones in charge. I’m not bringing anyone to do anything in here for us. We are too old a university. We’ve been around society for too long and we have to break out of that. We could do a lot for ourselves.”

Prof Copeland takes up this new leadership after having served as Dean of the Faculty of Engineering from 2007-2015. That experience is partly the basis of his belief in leadership by example, respect for people and sharing a vision.

“Leadership to me has to start with respect for the people around you. Fairness, openness and transparency are part of this respect, which is why I say it starts with people; it ends with people.”

“I just don’t like to see people treated unfairly. I don’t like to see systems being misused. As a matter of fact, I think anybody who does that, they’re lucky I am not a prime minister because I consider it as treason.”

He also believes that your vision must be clear and well communicated, “so people will understand where you would like to go. That vision has to be owned by all so it means it has to be developed by all.”

And since he feels that everyone has to be able to see the vision and contribute to it, he feels strongly that a leader has to be able to walk the talk. “If you’re asking people to do certain things you have to be willing to do it yourself, and in the same context, and you have to be prepared to jump in and help them.

As Campus Principal he will have to lead by example at a time when the economic outlook for the region, and for Trinidad and Tobago, is not particularly encouraging. The UWI St. Augustine, like the rest of the country, finds itself with reduced financial resources and the associated challenges that this damp outlook brings. But he is undaunted and welcomes the opportunity to take the Campus “…more into an entrepreneurial mode.”

This has been his personal goal for the Campus for about 20 years and now he has the chance to realise it. The question of financing is a “very, very big one” and he agrees that in addressing this challenge he would need to engage stakeholders (primarily governments) and reassert the important role UWI has in the region.

Clearly having spent some time pondering the role of the University and how he plans to use his term in office to lead the campus community, Professor Copeland makes reference to an address by former Barbados Prime Minister, Errol Barrow who spoke of The UWI’s leadership role in the region at a 1968 Graduation address.

What Sir Errol said then had obviously resonated profoundly with him, as he has quoted it more than once publicly. “…a university institution cannot survive unless it has as its constant goal service to the communities that support and sustain its activities.”

Within a regional university structure, how he intends to serve our communities will have to come about through a paradigm shift, “in terms of the way we do things and in terms of what our primary focus should be.”

He talks about changing some existing organizational processes which, in his view, UWI St. Augustine, has outgrown.

“In just a few short years, you quadruple your numbers, staffing has not increased in kind, and the organizational and administrative framework remains essentially the same,” he says.

It has come about from years of reflection; as a part of the system; as Dean of a Faculty which has invested heavily in refining its processes. And it comes from a mind that has been nurtured in the kind of creative environment so conducive to developing an innovative capacity. It’s not surprising that Professor Copeland received a national award for his contribution to the refinement of the Steelpan. He is, after all, the son of deceased mas man Mack Copeland.

For those who have an idea of what goes on in the world of Carnival, it would be easy to align this space with his creativity and passion, and to see that his business instincts are sharp.

Just over a week ago, speaking at the Technical Conference of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago, he challenged them to redefine the concept of innovation, recommending a version found in a business dictionary that said, “the process of translating an idea or invention into a good or service that creates value or for which customers will pay.”

He didn’t want the definition of innovation to be seen as simply coming up with a novel idea, but as one that could be brought to commercial application and success. He told the engineers that he had also come to realise that there were two other key dimensions of innovation that were social and ecological in nature, and that the whole business of innovation was based on elements that, together, supported sustainable development.

It is essentially the mantra he has been singing within academia for more than twenty years.

Outside of academia, he is probably best known as the G-Pan Man, in connection with the musical instrument he patented as its inventor in 2009. The Percussive Harmonic Instrument (P.H.I.) was also patented with him as co-inventor, along with Marcel Byron, Keith Maynard and the late Earle Phillip. This is perhaps one of the best examples of how academic interests can combine with personal passion to contribute to national development, he says.

His work in the development of the national instrument has spanned over 30 years – from as early as 1983 when he and Prof. Stephan Gift (current Dean of the Faculty of Engineering) published “Development of an Electronic Steel Pan” in the West Indian Journal of Engineering.

Born in San Fernando, where he still lives with his wife, he is a father of two adult children.

Professor Brian Russell Nigel Copeland’s CV runs over 13 pages, with lists of publications, reports, teaching accomplishments, innovations, development programmes, funding and awards. With all of these accomplishments one might expect him to bask in the spotlight. On the contrary he is quick to dismiss such a notion and says, “I never was into that. I don’t stand on ceremony…”

He fully accepts that his new office will call for ceremonial duties and other rites of the office, and it would be his duty to oblige in those functions.

It is early days yet, but time will surely unfold more of Professor Copeland’s innovative thinking, something the University needs in these straitened times.