The UWI climbs to top four per cent

UWI Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles has announced that the regional university has climbed the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings, following its debut last year.

The UWI appears in the World University Rankings 2020, which includes almost 1,400 universities across 92 countries and is still the only Caribbean University on the prestigious list.

In 2016, The UWI rolled out its five-year strategic plan (2017-2022) built upon three pillars — Access to tertiary education, Alignment with partners and stakeholders, and Agility in effort.

Themed Revitalizing Caribbean Development, this plan mobilizes the University to rekindle and sustain Caribbean Development.

Sir Hilary, in conceiving and rolling out this plan, which is known as the Triple A Strategy, declared an immediate objective to “radically upgrade and globalize the university’s performance reputation, and enhance its international visibility and competitiveness.”

To achieve this strategic objective, The UWI system prepared for its first exposure and participation in comparative international rankings, last year.

It chose professional engagement with Times Higher Education (THE), the most prestigious ranking agency and moved with agility to become fully conversant with THE’s scientific methodology — pillars of assessments, criteria for categorizing performance, and the tabulation of scores. Critically, it called for a purposeful effort to strengthen areas of weakness and enhance traditional strengths.

The UWI’s debut THE ranking results showcased the tremendous accumulated success of the University as a legacy institution.

With more than 200 registered universities in the Caribbean region, The UWI was ranked number one. Among more than 2,000 registered universities in Latin America and the Caribbean, it ranked in the top three per cent; and in the top five per cent among the 28,000 registered universities globally.