Globalisation: Building Research Management Capacity and Enhancing Curriculum Development at Jamaica's Leading Public University Through Cross-Border Collaborative Partnerships.

Globalisation refers to the growing interdependence of the world's economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information. Relatedly, the European Union and other organizations involved in funding research on a global scale have recognized, articulated, and adopted the posture that, to effectively tackle global challenges, humanity needs to be able to harness creative solutions from all over the world, and that an effective way to do this is through collaborative research and other types of partnerships. In the case of Jamaica's leading public university - the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech, Jamaica) -"Partnering with other universities and tertiary institutions to develop new research (and other) opportunities" is one of its strategic initiatives. In this paper, the authors use a retrospective analytical approach to describe and discuss examples of how UTech, Jamaica has engaged in cross-border collaborative partnerships, to build institutional research management capacity and enhance curriculum development to address important challenges ranging from climate change to sustainable energy. In addition, the authors also discuss learning and other benefits that accrue from these cross-border partnerships. From their retrospective analysis, the authors conclude that through intentional global collaboration UTech, Jamaica developed an innovative master of science programme aimed at addressing the critical areas of sustainable energy and climate change and has also benefitted from capacity-building of the staff in its research management office to perform their functions more effectively as research and innovation managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]