Professor Godfrey Baldacchino is the co-applicant of a successful Partnership Development Grant application of Can$200,000 to the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, for the Signs project, studying small island governance in both sovereign and non-sovereign island jurisdictions. The project will build relationships between researchers and will fund up to 12 post-graduate students.

The three-year project will develop a set of measures of sustainability and sovereignty by undertaking household and focus group surveys using comparisons of six pairs of islands. The Institute of Island Studies at the University of Prince Edward Island, in Charlottetown, Canada, will coordinate these activities, bringing together island researchers and solving issues using a local-to-global integrated approach.

A two-day workshop to launch Signs was held at UPEI over 7-8 September in Canada.

Professors Baldacchino and Randall share a Unesco Chair in Island Studies and Sustainability, held at UPEI in association with the University of Malta, since 2016.