SUNDAY 4TH OCTOBER, 2015 – UWI TODAY
9
From the very beginning the institution
that would
become the St Augustine Campus of The UWI, was an
important centre for research. Its first incarnation was the
Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA), formed
in 1921 when food production still formed the basis of the
Trinidad economy. ICTA provided training and research
at a time when scientific knowledge in the field was largely
unavailable to farmers. Nearly 40 years later in 1960, ICTA
became the St Augustine Campus, evolving its mission to
meet the specific needs of the emerging Caribbean society.
This year makes it 55 years since then and as the
regional societies have developed from agricultural colonies
to increasingly sophisticated societies withmany needs and
challenges, so has the impetus for homegrown research. At
55, the St Augustine Campus has embarked on perhaps its
most ambitious research agenda since its creation.
These are critical times for the Caribbean. In Trinidad
and Tobago the prosperous energy sector faces increasing
international competition, falling commodity prices and the
threat of depleted oil and gas reserves. Attempts to diversify
the economy have met with little to no success. The wider
region suffers from slow economic growth as many islands
remain dependent on stagnant food production sectors.
Unemployment, especially among young people, is high.
Crime, racial tension, corruption, climate change, social
development and a host of other issues affect Caribbean
society. The UWI was created in part to address these
challenges on behalf of the region and research is perhaps
its most powerful tool.
“Developing a strong research agenda, a cadre of
talented and well-respected researchers and dedicated
research funding mechanisms are all very important,
particularly as we continue to build a world-class UWI St
Augustine Campus,” Campus Principal Professor Clement
Sankat said late last year at a research awards ceremony.
“Intensifying our focus on the societal impact of UWI
research projects and how we communicate these findings
to our diverse audiences will also ensure that the public
better understands what we do at UWI and how university
research affects their daily lives.”
One of the vehicles for this new research agenda is the
UWI-Trinidad and Tobago Research and Development
Impact (RDI) Fund.The fund, launched in 2012, was created
to encourage and support research projects that address
“pressing developmental challenges” and will achieve
“recognisable and substantive impact in the short and
medium term”.The RDI fund emphasises multi-disciplinary
research. Its categories include climate change, crime and
security, economic diversification and competitiveness,
entrepreneurship, public health and technology and society.
Up to TT3$ million can be requested per project. The fund
provides support for three years.
In its first two years the RDI Fund awarded grant
funding for 22 projects totaling more than TT$14 million
across a variety of thematic areas. These included three
in climate change, four in economic diversification and
competitiveness, seven in public health, three in technology
and society and five in crime and security. They ranged
from looking at the impact of climate change on the Caroni
Swamp, to the analysis of counseling programmes for at-risk
youth, to understanding the heritage of East Port of Spain, to
finding newmethods of detecting and preventing the spread
of dengue fever and the development of an agri-knowledge
digital portal.
In the 55th anniversary year of the campus, nine
calls for proposals were accepted for RDI funding. These
projects research the impact of human activity on the
endangered leatherback turtle, microorganisms as a means
of supporting food security, technological solutions for
sustainable agriculture, beach erosion and coastal flooding,
a programme for ensuring medication safety, work/life
balance and its impacts, a genetic programme for the
development of a dairy goat industry, and the development
of precision agriculture techniques for crop management.
Research teams come from the Departments of Geography,
Food Production, Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Behavioural Sciences and Agricultural Economics and
Extension, as well as the School of Pharmacy and the
Institute for Gender and Development Studies (IGDS).
St Augustine’s anniversary year also held the 2015 UWI
Research Expo, from September 22 to 25. This biennial
expo is a partnership with the National Gas Company
of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC). It featured interactive
displays, experiments, mini workshops, mini concerts,
poetry readings and film screenings. The Research Expo is
designed to show campus work and to encourage a research
culture and create linkages between researchers and the
wider society (such as the private sector and civil society).
It is fitting to commemorate over five decades as a
research institution – reinforcing one of the core missions
for which the campus and the university were created at the
dawn of Caribbean independence.
(Joel Henry)
In Commemoration
“Chatham is a small community
in Trinidad,
heading south from Point Fortin in the county
of St Patrick. The Chatham Youth Camp is
currently used, among other things, to train
youngmen in the arts of communication and life
skills, engaging them through sport to discipline
both minds and bodies. The site has a pleasant
and pastoral prospect, tree-filled green hills
alternating with lush valleys, and the soughing
leaves of elegant bamboo limbs are the backdrop
for agile boys in red and black dribbling a
football. This seems a long way from the
classrooms and laboratories of The University
of the West Indies. Yet here was another field
for research engagement of our scholars and
students through a project of a team of scholars
from the Faculty of Social Sciences.”
This is the opening paragraph of the editorial
written by Professor Patricia Mohammed, the
editor of the book, “Advancing Knowledge:
Impacting Lives” commissioned by the Campus
Principal at St. Augustine, Professor Clement
Sankat.
55 YEARS
Research
THE THRUST OF THE FUTURE
This pastoral scene with bison harks back to the days of ICTA.
PHOTO: ARTHUR SUKBHIR
The book was meant
to coincide with the
celebration of 55 years
as a campus, which will
be formally marked on
October 12, 2015. It focuses
on the growing research
agenda and highlights
the work being done by
researchers throughout the
St. Augustine Campus.
