THE Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (IAST) has signed a Letter of Intent/Understanding with Trent University of Canada regarding collaborative opportunities in areas of research, development and training of graduate students.
The parties will explore possibilities of specific research programmes being conducted at Trent University, such as at the Trent Centre for Biomaterials Research and the Trent Water Quality Centre, and would investigate the prospect of working with IAST to establish collaborative research programmes of interest to staff at both institutions.
These initiatives are anticipated to allow the institutions access to joint international funding, and will allow for new knowledge to be generated and for highly qualified personnel to be trained, a situation which would otherwise not be possible.
The Letter of Intent/Understanding, signed Friday in the IAST Boardroom located at the University of Guyana Turkeyen campus, represented an agreement between the parties that a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) would be developed within six months of that signing.
Professors of both universities would engage in broad-based consultations within the two institutions before a final MOU is drafted and signed.
That MOU would address strategies to allow Guyanese students pursuing Trent University graduate studies in environmental and life sciences, materials sciences and sustainability studies to engage in most of their research activities within the IAST, so that their projects can be focused on locally relevant challenges and issues and so that they could avoid significant costs if the majority of their research activities were done elsewhere.
The concept will also engender highly qualified and appropriately trained personnel to handle local challenges, and would help to address some of the issues the country faces regarding the loss of intellectual capital.
Possible programme areas are identified in fields such as Indigenous studies, sustainability studies, environmental studies, climate change, water management, green chemistry, and biomaterials.
The potential for regional and local graduate students in Guyana and the Caribbean region to undertake graduate degrees at Trent University, while completing their practical work in Guyana at the IAST, would allow them to focus their research on local initiatives.
This would greatly reduce the costs of their graduate degrees, while maintaining the rigorous academic standards set by the School of Graduate Studies at Trent University.
Sources of funding related to travel of both students and supervisors include the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Guyana Government, the Commonwealth, local and Canadian industries, and Trent University. 
Friday’s signing ceremony saw an attendance of representatives of private sector businesses in the country, many of whom expressed their appreciation for the initiative and readiness to tap into the resources that would now become available.
Present were representatives from the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GuySuCo), Banks DIH Limited, Queens Atlantic Investment Incorporated, Qualfon (Guyana), and Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL). Joining them were those from UG, the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI) and the Guyana Livestock Development Board.
President and Vice-Chancellor of Trent University, Dr Steven Franklin, remarked that this initiative would be one of the most important priorities for Trent University in the coming year.
“I’d like to make sure that this is the beginning of a long-term relationship, because that’s how a sustainable relationship can be built around our joint understanding. With these two facilities, one at Trent and one here, we have unparalleled access to infrastructure and really outstanding instrumentation; but also the human resource, the human perspective, the teachers and the mentors,” he disclosed.
Dr Franklin said the Canadian university has a very strong environmental commitment, a programme on sustainability studies that was recently launched, great strengths in environmental sciences, and one of the oldest Indigenous Studies’ departments in Canada.
Director of IAST and the Trent Centre for Biomaterials Research, Dr Suresh Narine, said this agreement seeks to share research resources and ideas for development and sustainability; and proposes a model where IAST can play a role in enabling the training of highly qualified personnel, in particular graduate students.
He observed that the initiative would allow students enrolled at Trent to do all of their practical work at IAST, meaning that they can focus on projects with local relevance. The cost of a graduate degree would therefore be significantly less than it normally costs for a student to leave Guyana’s shores and live somewhere else.
Narine further remarked that if students are being trained on local challenges, there was a greater possibility that they would remain in the country and be engaged in issues that are of relevance to Guyana, “as opposed to people who leave these shores and then have no way of reconnecting to the country.”
Trent University Vice President for Research and International, Dr Neil Emery, said he was very impressed with the trip from the CJIA Airport, Timehri, to UG. “You can see the development happening here, and it’s palpable. You know that there are big transitions here, and you know that this is an economy that is booming and will continue to boom in the future.”
He offered that, with this initiative, there is an extraordinary opportunity to be taken advantage of. “So we will be back (to Guyana) with good frequency,” he declared.