Two days of meetings took place on February 10 and 11 between the Executive Management of The University of the West Indies and the governments of the Caribbean. Host for the meeting was the government of the Cayman Islands. The Technical Advisory team of regional governments led by Permanent Secretaries and supported by financial officers and other technical personnel, engaged the university leadership to determine what they would recommend to the governments of the region on budgetary allocations for the 2008-2009 academic year. Recommendations from the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) usually inform decisions of the University Grants Committee (UGC) which meets in April to formalize the extent of government support for The University of the West Indies over the next academic year. The annual budget of the university is then approved by the University Council which is made up of university representatives, student and alumni representatives, private sector leaders and government ministers. Government funding through the TAC/UGC process now accounts for about 55 percent of this budget. The Strategic Plan was approved by University Council in April 2007 and covers the period 2007-2012.

This year's meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee was crucial for the first year of implementation of the Strategic Plan and campuses will have to work within the framework of budgetary allocations to achieve the key objectives of the plan for 2008-2009 and after.

The first of the four strategic imperatives of the plan focuses on improvements in teaching and learning quality, generally upgrading the learning environment and enhancing teaching and learning infrastructure, support services and methodology.

The second focuses on graduate student expansion with an emphasis on research-committed graduate students. The idea is to generally strengthen graduate education at UWI through a range of measures including strengthening of programmes in research methodology, regional collaboration and international partnerships.

The third area is research and innovation. The idea here is to establish and strengthen research clusters involving multi-disciplinary teams focused on well thought through projects which attract top notch graduate students and post doctoral researchers.

The fourth is the formal establishment of an open campus to deliver high quality education to countries not served by a physical campus. A target of 15,000 students registered for degrees has been set for 2012.