The Institute for Sustainable Development was involved in several regionally significant projects and programmes during 2007/2008.

Through ProfessorAnthony Clayton, ISD served as advisor and lead researcher in the UNEP Integrated Assessment Programme which has designed and field-tested a new Integrated Assessment Methodology that will be deployed world-wide by UNEP in 2009. Again through Professor Clayton, ISD is the lead policy advisor for the Fifth Summit of the Americas and for the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, both of which will take place in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009. ISD’s responsibilities include drafting the main policy commitments for both meetings.

ISD also implemented several projects through its Hospitality and Tourism Unit.

These included: Collaborative work with the Inter-American Institution for Cooperation in Agriculture and with the Organisation of American States on the development of agro-tourism in Jamaica; the development of a tourism system model for Jamaica which focusses on the participation of urban and rural youth in community-based tourism enterprises, and which is being tested through the Organisation of American States’ Youth Americas Trust; and, in collaboration with the Cartesius Institute of the Netherlands, continued the project on ‘Overcoming Water Constraints on Tourism Development in Small Island States’. ISD is also working closely with the Planning Institute of Jamaica and other stakeholders on the development of a strategic framework for tourism for the National 2030 Plan for Jamaica.

Consistent with the goals of the University’s 2007–2012 Strategic Plan to emphasise international collaboration as well as increase national impact, ISD placed considerable emphasis on developing and working within collaborative research networks during 2007/2008.

Members of the networks include the Caribbean Academy of Science, the University of Technology in Jamaica, the School of Engineering at the University of Surrey, the Institute for Studies of Science, Technology and Innovation at the University of Edinburgh, the Centre for Social and Environmental Accounting Research at the University of St Andrew, the UNEP Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Cartesius Institute of the Netherlands, the University of Malta,Mico University, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Jamaica, the Statistical Institute of Jamaica (STATIN) and Air Jamaica Ltd.

ISD continued to place strong emphasis on the training of PhD students during the review period, a number of whom graduated in 2008 and several of whom will graduate in 2009.