The University of the West Indies is pleased to announce the appointment of the internationally renowned scholar of global governance, Professor W. Andy Knight, as Director of the Institute of International Relations (IIR) based at the UWI St Augustine Campus in Trinidad. A Barbadian by birth, Professor Knight has had a distinguished career as an academic and scholar in Canada, culminating in his heading the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta. 
 
Professor Knight serves as Advisory Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Welfare of Children and was a Governor of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) from 2007 to 2012. He co-edited Global Governance journal from 2000 to 2005 and was Vice Chair of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS).
 
Professor Knight has written and edited several books, book chapters and journal articles on various aspects of multilateralism, global governance and peace, as well as United Nations reform. His recent books include: Global Politics (with Tom Keating) which was published by Oxford University Press in 2010 and has become one of the seminal teaching tools for students of international relations in many European and North American universities; also The Routledge Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect (with Frazer Egerton); Towards the Dignity of Difference?: Neither 'end of History' Nor 'clash of Civilizations' (with Mojtaba Mahdavi); and Building Sustainable Peace (with Tom Keating, 2004). 
 
His work cuts across international relations, international law and global governance and is known for challenging the embedded orthodoxies of contemporary multilateralism. A much sought-after analyst, Professor Knight has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada – the highest honour afforded to Canadian academics.
 
Professor Andy Knight’s appointment as head of the IIR, on secondment from the University of Alberta, was effective January 1, 2013 for a period of three years.