BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – The University of the West Indies (UWI) says it will dedicate a research scope in honour of former St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister and academic, Dr Ralph Gonsalves.

Principal of the UWI Cave Hill Campus, Professor R
Clive Landis, made the announcement during the Fifth Owen Arthur Distinguished Lecture last Saturday, at which Dr Gonsalves was the featured speaker.

Professor Landis said the University Council, at its April 17 meeting, approved the establishment of a Centre for Public Policy and Governance at the Cave Hill Campus in recognition of Dr Gonsalves’s six decades of service, scholarship and political leadership across the Caribbean.

Gonsalves, 80, served as prime minister from 2001 to 2025, and as the leader of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) since 2001. He is the longest continuously serving prime minister since St Vincent’s independence in 1979, with almost 25 years in office. He now serves as Opposition Leader after the ULP lost the November 2025 general election to the New Democratic Party (NDP) headed by attorney Dr Godwin Friday.

Prior to entering politics, Gonsalves attended the UWI, graduating with degrees in Economics and Government before receiving his doctorate from the University of Manchester in 1974.

Gonsalves, an attorney, was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in London in 1981.

Professor Landis said that Gonsalves had requested that no building or centre be named after him and that in response, the university decided to dedicate a research scope focused on development, sovereignty and education in his honour.

Professor Landis added that the Owen Arthur lecture, in honour of the former Prime Minister of Barbados, would serve as the inaugural entry in the body of research to be conducted through the Centre for Public Policy and Governance.