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The Dean of UB's Faculty of Management and Social Sciences, Dr. Vincent Palacio says Research is an important aspect of the university's mission, and to 'emphasize' its importance, the school today, sponsored its First Annual Research Conference. The conference took the opportunity to showcase research conducted by both the university's students and lecturers.

Dr. Ismael Hoare, UB Provost
"One of the things that we are hoping to achieve is to highlight the work of our students and graduates in the field of research. We have been involve but we have not been involved in making explicit and public what the work we have accomplish in research as it pertains to the academic work of our students and the University of Belize."

Jim McFadzean
"What type of research are we talking about?"

Dr. Ismael Hoare, UB Provost
"Well we are looking at research that range from creativity in the workplace - how can we defying the new direction in business. What are some of the social influences that impact business in Belize? How can we address some of these issues? Our faculty are also presenting some of the information for example Dr. Castillo presented on the commodity chain in the Orange industry and how we may need to rethink what we do in the citrus industry so as so it is sustain in the future and continues to contribute to the financial and economic development in the country of Belize."

Jim McFadzean
"What's your understanding of this new post work in research that's being established by the University of Belize?"

Irlene Bol, UB Student
"It is good and fundamental for the University because we haven't done as much research and I guess these courses are very basic and fundamental for any other research, so if we want to further our studies in Master's Degree in anything we already have a way of doing our research."

And leading the way towards pioneering of a culture of research within the institution is Perry Bodden, a Senior at the university, who conducted research into the Sex Tourism trade in Belize and spoke about the challenges that came with it.

Perry Bodden, UB Senior
"This is a very sensitive topic of research and with this we chose the snow ball effect where we went to different places, different organizations for example BTB, where we could get different information that would gradually give us the real information that we want and but due to confidentiality you can't really say too much on that. But the positive feedback was very low because of this sensitive topic."

The conference was held at the Radisson Fort George hotel. The university says it intends on making the annual event an international conference.