The Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF) has held a stakeholder engagement to build concrete partnerships before its full operationalisation next year.
The event attracted academia, development partners, donor agencies, research institutions, and science and technological institutions.
Issues discussed included possible commercialisation of research findings, benefits of research, and building stronger collaboration to scale up research into agriculture, health, education, and aquaculture.
The GNRF Act 1056 was passed by Parliament in 2022 and has since not been functioning until it was operationalised this year when a 13-member Board was sworn into office after appointments by President John Dramani Mahama, and is expected to be officially launched in June next year.
The Chair of the Governing Board, Professor Eric Danquah, in his welcome address indicated that institutional building must proceed alongside dialogue, partnership, and co-creation.
He stated that the time has also come to outline their priorities and, most importantly, to begin open conversation on building a coordinated, sustainable, and impactful national research funding system for the country.
Prof. Danquah expressed optimism that the outcome of the engagement would help align the collective effort to create the Ghana envisaged through research, innovation, and partnership.
The Minister of Education, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, speaking at the ceremony, reaffirmed government’s commitment to position GNRF as a global research centre of excellence.
“Let me assure you that President John Dramani Mahama will be delighted to officially launch the GNRF, not only in honour of a campaign pledge he made to the good people of Ghana, but his commitment to make research key to social, political, and economic development, so be assured that the resetting is real,” he added.
The country, he elaborated, has taken a decisive step towards building the future envisioned for the country and Africa, hence the need for a dedicated national mechanism for research financing, as well as securing a long-term instrument to support indigenous research and promote commercialisation of research output.
The minister noted that though the request for the country to commit 0.5 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product to finance the fund exists, the fractured nature of the economy inherited has caused long-term damage and cannot be implemented before 2028.
Moreover, Professor Danquah indicated that financing infrastructure, technology transfer, and commercialisation entrepreneurial and ecosystem institutions such as the Centre for Scientific Research and Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research were delivering cutting-edge achievements. He expressed optimism to work with the fund to deepen collaboration in order to ensure the fund is effectively used for the commercialisation of technologies, intellectual property licensing, and start-up investment returns in the strategic private sector.
The Acting Fund Administrator, Prof. Abigail Opoku Mensah, said the fund will be focused on health, humanities, science (STEM), agriculture, and technology transfer.
By Lawrence Vomafaakpalu
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