Four offered scholarships to pursue Phd courses
Four Ghanaians have been given scholarships to pursue PhD courses in marketing, agribusiness and economics under the DANIDA Building Stronger Universities Programme.
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They are: Jemima Yakah, an assistant lecturer in the Agricultural Extension Department at the College of Agriculture and Consumer Science (PhD Scholarship in Agri-Business), Raphael Odoom, a teaching assistant in the Department of Marketing and Customer Management, (PhD Scholarship in Marketing), Philip Kofi Adom, a graduate assistant in the Department of Economics (PhD Scholarship in Economics) and George Acheampong, a teaching assistant in the Department of Marketing and Customer Management, (PhD Scholarship in Marketing).
They will undertake course work at the University of Copenhagen and the Copenhagen Business School starting in the 1st quarter of 2013 in the various courses related to their PhD study.
Under the Growth and Employment Platform (GEP) of the DANIDA Building Stronger Universities (BSU) programme, the scholarships in economics, agri-business and marketing were supported at the University of Ghana. A similar number of scholarships have been supported under the Climate and Health platforms of the same BSU programme in the University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, also in Ghana, the University of Dar-Es-Salaam and the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania.
The Building Stronger Universities (BSU) in Developing Countries is a partnership between research and higher education institutions in developing countries and Danish universities. The initiative is funded by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DANIDA).
The overall objective of the BSU initiative is to strengthen universities in developing countries to increasingly play a role in the economic, social and political development of the societies in which they are located.
The GEP BSU scholarship is facilitated by core funding from Danida and is co-funded by the participating universities. As part of the eligibility criteria, the successful applicants will be enrolled at a relevant department/faculty at University of Ghana, Legon. The candidate will have a principal supervisor from his/her University of Enrolment and a co-supervisor from a relevant Danish university. The candidate is obliged to do course work equivalent to half a year of study.
The scholarships are, when deemed optimal and feasible, implemented as a “sandwich-model”, where the candidate stays up to a maximum of 10 months in Denmark, typically divided in two stays.
Ms Yakah holds a B.A. in economics from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia; an MBA with a concentration in finance from Clark Atlanta University; and an M.Sc., in agricultural education from Texas A&M University, College Station,Texas. She also has several years of experience working with multinational corporations such as United Parcel Service, Cummins Power Generation, Home Depot, and CitiBank, all in the United States. She was also a recipient of an African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellowship in 2012.
Her teaching and research areas include: development communication; extension programme development and implementation; ICT use in agricultural education; climate change and adaptation in agricultural development; and innovation studies.
Jemima is passionate about enhancing agricultural development and environmental sustainability through Extension education and agribusiness management. Her proposed PhD thesis topic is: Development of multi-stakeholder models, tools and strategies for the restoration and sustainability of three agro-ecological zones of Ghana: An alternative approach for Agricultural Extension in climate change adaptation.
Mr Odoom who holds an MPhil Degree in Marketing is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Ghana Business School studying Marketing. His proposed thesis focuses on “Adoption of competitive strategies for development – A study of agricultural SMEs in Ghana.”
This is inspired by the fact that several studies have espoused the role played by Small and medium-scale enterprises towards the economic growth of nations, especially those in the developing world. However, given the current global business trends, it is believed that these Small and medium-scale enterprises need to develop and adopt competitive strategies which will not only ensure their survival but also be sustainable enough to gain higher performance and business growth.
Mr Odoom will be working under the supervision of Dr. Bedman Narteh, with co-supervision support provided by Professor Robert Hinson (also of the Department of Marketing at the University of Ghana Business School) and Professor John Rand (Danish Supervisor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark).
As part of the PhD scholarship, Raphael will follow courses at the Copenhagen Business School like Strategic Market Creation, Strategy, Organisation and Leadership, and Management of Innovation and Business Development.
Mr Adom holds a Bachelor of Education in Social Sciences (Economics major) from University of Cape Coast, 2007, and a Master of Philosophy in Economics from University of Ghana, 2011. He worked as a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana from October 2011 to June 2012.
He is currently a Graduate Assistant at the Department of Economics, University of Ghana. In 2012, Phillip was awarded a DANIDA BSU-GEP PhD Scholarship award to pursue a three-year Doctoral Degree in Economics. He is currently affiliated to the Department of Economics.
Mr Adom will be working on his PhD thesis with scholars based at the University of Ghana and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His current PhD thesis topic is on “the impact of rising food prices on household welfare in Ghana” which is being supervised by Professor Peter Quartey (Lead), Dr. Fritz F Gockel (co-supervisor) Department of Economics, University of Ghana, and Professor Henrik Hansen (co-supervisor), Institute of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Mr Acheampong, a teaching assistant in the Department of Marketing and Customer Management, would pursue a PhD in Marketing. His work will focus on Innovation among Rural SMEs.
According to George “receiving the award itself was an experience and the journey after that has been very challenging and fulfilling”. The thesis seeks to explore innovative methods that can be adopted by rural SMEs in Ghana to enhance their survival and performance. The thesis is supervised by Professor Robert E. Hinson and Dr Bedman Narteh (University of Ghana) and Professor John Rand (University of Copenhagen).
Mr Acheampong completed his first degree in marketing in November 2008 and came top of the marketing class in that year; graduating with first class honours. In August 2009, he enrolled for an MPhil in Marketing at the same business school and graduated in November of 2011.
He has also served at the University of Ghana Business School, Department of Marketing and Customer Management as a national service person, graduate assistant and teaching assistant to date. His research interests have been in marketing, enterprise and innovation and how these can affect market-based development policy.