Institute of Island Studies launches Entrepreneurship in Small Island States and Territories
The UPEI community, led by the Institute of Island Studies, celebrated today the launch of a new publication about the creative side of enterprise in small island states and territories. Entrepreneurship in Small Island States and Territories documents the considerable resourcefulness these islands and territories display in facing the challenges of size, scale and peripherality. The book is edited by Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino: an Island Studies Teaching Fellow at UPEI.
“In spite of much received wisdom, being on a small island is also a business opportunity, a condition that permits specific island based businesses to emerge, thrive and survive,” said Dr. Baldacchino. “There is ample evidence of this, with Biovectra leading the way on Prince Edward Island.”
The creative endeavours of their residents, facilitated by adroit public policy, has created economic and investment opportunities that translate into some private sector employment and decent livelihoods for many. The contributors to this book explore the local ingenuity, coupled with strategic investments and the support of the diaspora, that has led to a suite of (sometimes unlikely) products and services: from citizenship and higher-level internet domain names, to place-branded foods and beverages; from electronic gaming to niche manufacturing.
The book includes a chapter by Dr. Jim Randall at UPEI on the growth of the biosciences on Prince Edward Island, and specifically, on the company BioVectra Limited. BioVectra, founded by Dr. Regis Duffy, has been a formative actor in the emerging bioscience cluster on PEI. The chapter explores the emergence of this innovative company and sector on an island otherwise dominated by seasonal economic activities.
“The impact of entrepreneurship on PEI in particular has been felt through the development of a number of small and medium size enterprises, including the over 40 companies that comprise the PEI BioAlliance,” said Dr. Robert Gilmour, UPEI’s Vice-President Research and Graduate Studies. “In addition, UPEI has the capacity to transform the entrepreneurship of its faculty into real-world outcomes through Synapse, its recently restructured technology transfer unit.”
There is much more to small island survival than subsistence farming, aid, remittances and public sector workfare. Entrepreneurship in Small Island States and Territories helps to dispel this myth, showcasing an aspect of life in small island states and territories that is rarely documented or critically reviewed.
In his introductory editorial to the book, Dr. Baldacchino uses the phrase 'doggedly perseverant and cleverly opportunistic' to describe the entrepreneurship that has arisen on many small islands of the world, from aquaculture in the Faroes, to the use of coconuts as biofuel in the Solomon Islands, casino tourism in Macao, medical tourism in Barbados, and off-shore banking in Jersey.
Entrepreneurship in Small Island States and Territories is published in New York by Routledge, one of the world’s leading academic international publishers, as part of its Studies in Entrepreneurship series.
