Engineer professor Gossett Oliver from the University of Technology (UTech) in Kingston, Jamaica, has identified intellectual property rights and greater Caribbean research collaboration as priorities.
Oliver, who is also the vice-president of the School of Graduate Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship at UTech, said efforts to improve funding have been hampered by inadequate training for Caribbean research and innovation managers.
“Much support is needed, particularly in accessing funding for research and identifying research priority areas,’’ he said.
As the head of UTECH’s income-generation through consultancy services since 2007, Oliver discovered that intellectual property rights were a key challenge.
‘‘Securing intellectual property rights and facilitating partnerships for conducting effective research with impact are priorities,” said Oliver.
Oliver was therefore delighted with the formation of the Caribbean Research and Innovation Managers Association (CabRIMA) earlier this year, which has run two successful training workshops to date.
He singled out the support for CabRIMA from independent research institutes as important.
“This is significant as research and innovation management associations usually have only academic institutions as members,” he said.
Oliver also serves as a representative of the Improvement of Research and Innovation Management Capacity in Africa and the Caribbean (RIMI4AC) project run by the African, Caribbean and Pacific Science and Technology Programme.
Oliver is well-placed to serve on the RIMI4AC project, funded by the European Development Fund, having worked in northern Nigeria in the 1970s and 1980s.
He lectured at Kaduna Polytechnic as well as at Ahmadu Bello University, the second-largest university in Africa, which was ranked among the world’s top 2000 universities last year by the University Ranking by Academic Performance survey.