Vice-Chancellor's Report to University Council 2018/2019

Staff Achievements During the annual Vice-Chancellor’s Awards Ceremony held on October 16, 2019, Professor C. Justin Robinson, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, received the award for Public Service and Service to the University, while Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences Dr. O. Peter Adams, received the award for International Collaboration. Among his many responsibilities, Professor Robinson serves as the Key Strategy Officer of the Cave Hill Campus, and as Interim Director of the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management. He efficiently manages these varied and substantial responsibilities as an administrator, while still maintaining an active teaching and research portfolio. He contributed significantly to the development of academic programmes and centres, including the Centre for Biosecurity Studies, six MSc and three BSc programmes. He has published 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and 11 technical reports, including those prepared for the Inter-American Development Bank, Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Dr. Adams is one of two Principal Investigators with the Eastern Caribbean Health Outcome Research Network (ECHORN) and the Yale Transdisciplinary Collaborative Centre for Health Disparities Research focused on Precision Medicine (Yale-TCC). The project is a collaboration between Yale School of Medicine, The University of the West Indies (Cave Hill and St. Augustine Campuses), University of the Virgin Islands and the University of Puerto Rico. The research study was the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean and examined the lifestyles, eating habits, and health behaviours associated with cancer.

Faculty of Medical Sciences Paediatric ECHORN Cohort Study: Intergenerational Factors that Contribute to Cardiovascular Risk in the Caribbean The Faculty of Medical Sciences obtained US$543,388 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/ National Institutes of Health (NHLBI/NIH) for this five-year project which began in July 2018. The Study focuses on cardiovascular risk factors among children in the Eastern Caribbean and complements existing US-based paediatric research. Dr. O. Peter Adams is the Barbados site Principal Investigator and Professor Ian Hambleton the Senior Analyst. IGDS: NBU The PATH Project: Promoting Agency, Trust and Hope (PATH) Among Incarcerated Barbadian Youth Project (2019-2021) The Institute for Gender and Development Studies obtained US$233,335 from Templeton World Charities Fund for this project. In 2018, the IGDS: NBU began its collaboration with the University of Oxford and Tulane University on the Promoting Agency Trust and Hope (PATH) among Incarcerated Barbadian Youth Project, a programme which uses the science of character building to promote a set of developmental actions for youth resident at the Government Industrial Schools. The PATH project centres the well-being of incarcerated Barbadian youth toward their meaningful reintegration into communities.

LOA between The UWI, Cave Hill Campus and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) for the project “Conservation and Propagation of Sweet Potato Planting Material in Barbados”. The project seeks to address challenges relating to viruses affecting sweet potato varieties in Barbados.

The Campus commends the Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), the Institute for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit and the Faculty of Medical Sciences for their highly successful efforts to obtain grant funds in support of their research during the year under review. CERMES Ongoing collaboration between CERMES and regional and international partners has resulted in the Centre obtaining grant funding from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in excess of BDS$1.2 million for the provision of services on projects including: • Illuminating Hidden Harvests: Case Study on Small- scale Fisheries in Anguilla, St. Kitts-Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos”; • Activities in the support of Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Implementation in the North Brazil Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem”;

Climate Change Adaptation in the Eastern Caribbean Fisheries Sector (CC4FISH); and

• Developing Organisational Capacity for Ecosystem Stewardship and Livelihoods in Caribbean Small- scale Fisheries Sector”.

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