Regional
Headquarters, Jamaica, Friday, 4 October, 2019. Executive
management of The University of the West Indies (The
UWI) emerged from a recent
two-day retreat with a deeper focus on the University’s financial
condition and commitment to regional economic growth.

Examining
the first two years of The UWI’s performance within the context of
its five-year Triple A
strategic plan 2017-2022 themed “Revitalizing
Caribbean Development”,
management converged on the need for even greater financial
efficiency.

Considerable
strides were made on strategic outcomes such as research recognition,
global impact and leadership, access to teaching and learning, and
public accountability. However, the University sees the economic
sustainability of the region as its most important challenge, hence
greater focus on the institution’s financial health in order to be
an effective development partner.

The
University, in the last two decades, has been challenged with rising
levels of receivables from governments on account of the narrowing
fiscal space associated with falling competitiveness and meeting IMF
conditionalities. The impairment of these debts and other write-offs
in the last decade has meant a considerable loss to the University.
To remedy this situation, Prime Ministers at the Caricom Heads of
Government Meeting in Haiti last year agreed to assist with an
assets-for-cash
swap, a welcomed response that motivated the University to accelerate
its comprehensive austerity programme.

Evolving
from the retreat discussions, Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary
Beckles approved a “Ten in
Two Strategy”; calling on
all campuses and Regional Headquarters/Vice-Chancellery
administration to cut expenditures by 10% over the next two years.
All UWI entities have been tasked with consolidating academic
programmes, adopting a robust out-sourcing methodology that targets
non-core expenditures, and diving deeper into the digital culture in
search of cost reductions and savings.

Simultaneously,
the Vice-Chancellor requested that operational units increase top
line revenue-generation by 10% over the same period, to achieve a
UWI-wide savings of approximately US$30 million.

In
addition, the executive management retreat agreed to an aggressive
programme to achieve five new targets over
the next two years of the current strategic plan:

1. 
   Intensification
   of cross-campus planning to drive digital
   transformation;
   
   
2. 
   Implementation
   of the University as a multi-lingual
   academy;
   
3. 
   Consolidation
   of The UWI’s reputation as the global
   leader in climate action and advocacy;
   
4. 
   Fast
   track strategies to develop the entrepreneurial
   culture across The UWI system
   and to cultivate “UWI
   Corporate” as an effective
   brand;
   
5. 
   Establishment
   The UWI Global Online
   platform to offer programmes and courses internationally.
   

With
this strategic direction, The UWI will continue to soar as the
Caribbean’s premier university.

-End-

About
The UWI

For
over 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has
provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider
world. The UWI has evolved from a university college of London in
Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally
respected, regional university with near 50,000 students and five
campuses: Mona
in Jamaica, St.
Augustine
in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave
Hill in
Barbados, Five Islands
in Antigua and Barbuda and an Open Campus. As part of its robust
globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with
universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa
including the State
University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and
Sustainable Development;
the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the
Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de
los Andes (UNIANDES); the UWI-China Institute of Information
Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African
and Diaspora Studies and the
Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of
Johannesburg (UJ).
The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and
postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering,
Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science &
Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. 

As
the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost
objective is driving the growth and development of the regional
economy. The
world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times
Higher Education,
has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for
2019, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the Caribbean
for 2018 and 2019.The
UWI has been the only Caribbean-based university to make the
prestigious lists. For more, visit www.uwi.edu.