Dr. Keith Nurse

Dr. Keith Nurse is Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services, University of the West Indies, Barbados. He is formerly a member of staff at the Institute of International Relations and academic coordinator of the post-graduate diploma in Arts and Cultural Enterprise Management programme, University of the West Indies (UWI), Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Nurse has taught at the Institute of Business and the Department of Government, UWI and the Institute for International Development and Co-operation, University of Ottawa, Canada.

Dr. Nurse has worked as a consultant to governments, NGOs and international, regional and national agencies such as the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, the Film Company of Trinidad and Tobago, UNIDO, UNECLAC, Caribbean Tourism Organization, South Centre, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Union PROINVEST, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, the National Institute for Higher Education Research Science and Technology, the Medical Research Council UK, the Carnegie Council for International Affairs and Ethics, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, CARICOM, CARIFORUM, UNESCO, Caribbean Export Development Agency and the Tourism Industry and Development Company of Trinidad and Tobago.

Dr. Nurse is former President of the Association of Caribbean Economists and coordinator of ACEs Professional Training Institute in Trade, Industrial and Innovation Policy. He is on the advisory board of the WTO Chairs programme, and the MA in Technology Governance at the University of Tallinn, Estonia. He is on the steering group for the OECD Knowledge Networks and Markets research project as well as the Annual Conference for Development and Change, Carnegie Council for International Affairs and Ethics. He is on the scientific committee for the Diploma for Advanced Studies in Trade Negotiations and Governance, University of Geneva and the Heritage 2010 International Conference. He has served as an advisory member of the Inter-American Cultural Policy Observatory, Organization of the American States and currently on the editorial board of the academic journal Tourism and Cultural Change and the Anthem Press Other Canon Series.

He is a former director at two state-owned enterprises, National Petroleum Marketing Company and National Agro-Chemicals ltd. He is also a director at Media 21 ltd, Contemporary Caribbean Arts Limited (CCA 7) and a former director at the Entertainment Industry Development and Export Company.

Dr. Nurse is one of six experts commissioned by UNESCO in 2008 to prepare papers addressing the challenge of making operational Article 16 of the UNESCO Convention for the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity, which undertakes States Parties to accord preferential treatment to artists and creators, and cultural goods and services coming from developing countries. Dr. Nurse is the Sir Arthur Lewis memorial lecturer 2003. In 2004 the Cuban Institute for Contemporary Music gave him an award for his contribution to research on Caribbean cultural industries. He has published several scholarly articles on the global political economy of the clothing, banana, tourism, climate change, copyright and cultural/creative industries. He has also published on migration, diaspora, HIV/AIDS, youth, gender, and poverty.

He is the author of Festival Tourism in the Caribbean (Inter-American Development Bank, 2003) and The Caribbean Music Industry (Caribbean Export Development Agency, 2003). He is also the co-editor of Caribbean Economies and Global Restructuring (Ian Randle Publishers, 2002) and Globalization, Diaspora and Caribbean Popular Culture (Ian Randle Publishers, 2005) and co-author of Windward Islands Bananas: Challenges and Options under the Single European Market (Freidrich Ebert Stiftung, 1995). An edited collection entitled Remittances and Beyond: Migration, Diaspora and the Global Caribbean Economy is under review by a publisher. A monograph entitled Unthinking Globalization is also being prepared.

He has a BA in Economics (1986) from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, and a PhD in International Relations (1992) from the Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.