Since the news of the Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak, The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has been closely monitoring the situation in China. The UWI has an administrative presence and 36 students enrolled in a BSc Software Engineering programme at UWI-China Institute of Information Technology (UWICIIT) which allows for two years of study at the Global Institute of Software Technology (GIST). At this time of inter-semester break, 28 students and one administrator are currently in Suzhou, China.

The historic moment finally arrived on December 11, 2019, when The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and the University of Havana (UH) signed an agreement to establish a new and innovative, joint Institute for the Sustainable Development of the Caribbean. For some 30 years, the two universities collaborated on the margins of their respective mandates, occasionally exchanging students and promoting collaborative research projects in areas of mutual interests.
 

 
Our regional media have been calling for an open dialogue on the matter of higher education — its capacity, quality, and funding — and role in our region’s transformation and development going forward. I welcome wholeheartedly this call and take this opportunity at the beginning of 2020 to make an intervention in respect of the restructuring of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) to better serve and survive. I wish to share what we are doing with the institution at its centre level, and no doubt my five colleague principals will contribute on the excellent strategic work they are leading on their respective campuses.

The historic Glasgow-Caribbean Centre for Development Research, a joint initiative of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and the University of Glasgow, has begun its work. It is the first institution within British University history, dedicated to the slavery reparations policy framework.