Dr Marvadeen Singh-Wilmot | Jamaica the ‘STEM Island’ – A dream that can come true

On April 24, Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared Jamaica a ‘STEM Island’. Many, especially those who understand the intricate link between science and development, have longed for this to happen. Like ‘Jamaica One Love’, ‘Jamaica the STEM Island’ strikes a delightful chord and presents Jamaica as a desirable destination for multinational STEM investments and startups, high-tech research and development projects, international STEM partnerships, and tourism enhancement by attracting STEM professionals and students from across the world.

Vision 2030 articulated this, and from 2009, national discussions about STEM as the foundation for sustainable development and the vehicle for economic growth have escalated. Government interventions and public-private partnerships in STEM have also grown, and there are a number of programmes that are advancing/will advance STEM education, mentorship, and awareness, at least up to the high-school level. Some of note are the NBCF BOOST (Building Out Our STEM Teachers) programme, UWI-UNESCO’s Walking in Her Footsteps, the Ministry of Education’s STEM Schools and Teaching Methodologies projects and Jamaica STEM for Growth Foundation’s National STEM Center.

However, when a country declares itself a ‘STEM Island’ without the accompanying capacity building for human resources and infrastructure to drive STEM research, innovation, and education up to the university postgraduate level, it may encounter several challenges and face potential consequences, including missed opportunities and loss of credibility. The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) has withdrawn the eligibility of Jamaican scientists for their Research Grants Programme in Basic Sciences because of the perception that Jamaica no longer has “… specific needs for support in building research capacity”. The reality is in stark contrast to this perception.

LACK OF RESOURCES

According to the UNESCO Science Report 2021, 68 per cent of scientific research papers from Jamaica have overseas co-authors. This is largely due to the lack of research facilities and equipment to carry out both basic and high-impact research on the island. In some cases, local scientists invite overseas collaborators to share ownership of projects just to get access to equipment, many times with little or no intellectual contribution from them. Jamaica’s National Science Technology and Innovation (ST&I) Policy 2022 states: “The persistently low levels of support to Jamaica’s ST&I landscape impacts negatively on the imperative of building, maintaining and equipping proper R&D laboratories.”

The policy goes on to say: “Across the ST&I landscape, there exists limited infrastructure to conduct R&D activities, and where they do exist, the equipment is either outdated or in need of continuous repair. This challenge limits scientists’ and innovators’ potential for scientific and technological advancements/breakthroughs.”

With no STEM R&D fund, most scientists in Jamaica access research support through international grants, which dictate their own focal points often not directly aligned with national priorities. Furthermore, funding for graduate students in STEM is grossly inadequate. Graduate students are also called postgraduate students because they have graduated with their first degrees and are pursuing masters and doctoral studies. They form the workforce and lifeblood of scientific research around the world and spend countless hours in laboratories and fields providing the necessary manpower and brainpower to move scientific inquiry and innovation forward. The frustrating lack of resources, including equipment and financial support for graduate students, is largely responsible for the decline in registration for experimental STEM-based research programmes at local universities, the long completion times and/or abandonment of many research projects, and the constant migration of students to pursue graduate work and innovation in STEM. In fact, many scientists are also leaving as the working conditions and STEM salaries in Jamaica are among the lowest in the world. It is becoming more and more difficult to attract and retain the best talent for research and innovation in institutions across Jamaica. Unfortunately, if the STEM brain drain is not urgently plugged, the entire ‘STEM Island’ will continue to erode, and significant investments, including the $2.4 billion tertiary STEM scholarship facility recently established by the Government of Jamaica, will yield little or no direct returns to Jamaica. At the moment, it seems like Jamaica has chosen to capitalise on the global demand for STEM workers by STEM training and talent export. This approach can yield benefits through increased remittances and diaspora engagement and is a creative way to offset brain drain (TWAS newsletter vol. 27, no. 1, 2015). It is, however, not a method for building a ‘STEM Island’.

As a ‘STEM Island’, Jamaica will also need to elevate the value of knowledge and basic science. Policymakers, investors, and the populace must understand that scientific knowledge is the foundation upon which new ideas, technologies, and solutions are built. For example, in the development of solar cells and framework materials that remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it is crucial to know the arrangement and properties of the atoms and molecules that make up the material. Atoms and molecules are the basic particles that constitute matter and cannot be seen with the naked eye but can be observed with various scientific equipment. Therefore, in the development of sustainable materials, studies from the design, synthesis and characterisation phase are equally as important as material fabrication and application. So while we push the call for applied science and innovation, we must also support basic science research because it builds scientific capacity, trains the next generation of scientists and engineers, and increases the nation’s intellectual capital and global competitiveness in the long term. These characteristics are inherent features of any scientifically advanced civilisation, including technopoleis and STEM islands/cities/countries.

The prime minister’s declaration is strategic and hopefully signals the coming of investment with capacity building and a coordinated approach to the STEM enterprise in Jamaica. Indeed the National ST&I policy proposes a strategy to “repair, refurbish, re-equip and rationalise existing laboratory facilities ensuring efficient, effective, collaborative and coordinated use across sectors”.

STIMULATING DISCOURSE

The country is not yet sure when policy implementation will begin, but this declaration might well be the catalyst that speeds up the process. At the very least, Jamaica’s new ‘STEM Island’ status is stimulating much-needed discourse on the current state of the island’s R&D landscape. Other countries in the Global South have made similar declarations but with accompanying actions to build out ‘tech’ or ‘eco’ cities through partnerships among government, private sector, and the international community.

Sèmè City in Benin, Africa, is a recent example of an International City of Innovation and Knowledge that is offering incentives for investment in STEM. With supportive policies and a regulatory framework that drives knowledge creation, research, innovation, and technology transfer, a thriving ecosystem of innovation and wealth creation is developing in Benin.

There are many other ideas, including the creation of research hubs like the Caribbean Regional X-ray Science Toward Advancement Laboratory (crXstal), which is coming this summer to the Department of Chemistry at The UWI. CrXstal is being made possible by cooperation among national, regional, and international institutions and will serve the Caribbean as a research, education, and service centre for materials characterisation through X-ray techniques. We can also learn from successful models like one used in 1998 to establish Tanaud International BV, a subsidiary of the Canadian pharmaceutical company Biochem Pharma, in the Department of Chemistry at The UWI. Tanaud established a first-class research laboratory and employed eight full-time graduates of the department’s BSc, MPhil, and PhD programmes, paying them competitive international salaries. In fact, all employees, including the head of research and the manager, were graduates of The UWI. The team made pharmaceutical compounds to target HIV and diabetes and contributed to Biochem Pharma’s success for 12 years until the company was sold. Field Trip Natural Products Lab, dubbed the ‘Magic Mushroom Lab’ at The UWI, Mona, is another demonstration of this model. These facilities need to proliferate throughout Jamaica in the same way that call centres are multiplying rapidly.

Until then, Jamaica the ‘STEM Island’ seems like a big dream to many who share the prime minister’s “vision of fostering innovation, driving economic growth, and empowering our people to thrive in the global knowledge economy”.

However, Jamaicans are known for reducing both big and small challenges to “no problem”. With the prime minister’s “collaborative all hands-on deck approach”, the climate is right, and together, we can make it “a dream come true”.

Dr Marvadeen Singh-Wilmot is senior lecturer and leader of the MSW Research Group, international science advocate, fellow of the Caribbean Academy of Sciences,and affiliate fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the West Indies, Mona.