The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) has provided some $2.8 million dollars to assist the UWI, Mona Campus, through its Department of Government, in the implementation and completion of a research project entitled “Taking Responsibility: The Jamaican Economy Since Independence”. The project is an independent research programme being supported by the PIOJ research and analysis programme. The objective is to arrive at a definitive assessment of the critical factors that account for the successes and failures of the post-independence Jamaica model including leadership, social psychology of underperformance and crime. The project began in March 2005 and is expected to culminate by the end of 2006 with an international conference to consolidate the intellectual debate on the research as well as the publication of a book encapsulating the findings.