By Professor C. Justin Robinson, Campus Principal, UWI Five Islands Campus
There is now a physical campus of the University of the West Indies in
Antigua & Barbuda. While increased access to higher education is the most
obvious and immediate benefit to Antigua & Barbuda and the OECS, the
research and publications emanating from the campus are likely, in my
opinion, to be the most impactful in terms of driving national development
and positive change.
The major purpose of research and publication is the advancement of
knowledge, which seeks to expand our understanding of the world we live
in. Research provides the insights that lead to innovation, opening up new
opportunities and new ways of solving problems such as crime, climate
change and chronic non-communicable diseases.
Crucially for Antigua and Barbuda and the OECS at this stage of
development, research and publications should provide the foundation for
evidence-based policymaking and decision-making, not guesswork, in
various sectors, including healthcare, education,
and public policy. The guesswork approach to
decision-making is fraught with inefficiency and
wastage. With the limited available resources,
our small economies cannot afford to invest time,
human effort, and money into projects and
initiatives only to realise a few years later that
they are unviable or unsustainable because they are simply not suited to
our unique circumstances.
Research-driven policy-making should not be the modus apperandi only
when it is demanded by external agents. On the contrary, establishing a
culture of research should be a regional target that extends across all
sectors. A culture is a pattern of how things are done, and a research
culture sets the stage for persons at all levels, in all sectors and industries,
to adopt this more effective mode of doing business.
The Five Islands Campus can serve as the catalyst for a research agenda
focused on Antigua and Barbuda and the OECS. Our home-grown
research fosters the crafting of solutions that fit our unique circumstances
and are grounded in our culture. Presently, in many areas, we are forced to
rely on generic, off-the-shelf solutions. We are unique in many ways, and
we need unique solutions that take who we are as Caribbean people into
account. The Five Islands Campus of The UWI is committed to fostering a
culture of research and publication, and we invite governmental agencies,
statutory bodies and private sector entities to partner with us.
Professor Justin Robinson is a Professor of Corporate Finance, and his research interests are in Capital
Markets in Developing countries, Public Finance, Financial Risk Management, and Corporate Finance.
He has published over 50 refereed publications in several regional and international journals.
