Rrenowned heart surgeon, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, has called for increased investment in research commercialisation to enable the country turn scientific discoveries into products that address national development needs.
He said the absence of adequate funding and technical infrastructure was preventing many researchers from moving their work beyond academic publications and prototypes into commercially viable products.
Speaking at the 11th Research Awards and Grants ceremony at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, who is also the Director of the Frimpong-Boateng Medical Centre, said the country needed a Design and Manufacturing Technology Centre and a dedicated venture capital facility to support the development, testing and production of research innovations.
Amendment
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng also called for an amendment to Section 3(b) of the Ghana National Research Fund Act, 2020 (Act 1056), to change the provision from an allocation of “not exceeding 0.5 per cent” to “not less than 0.5 per cent”.
He further urged the government to expedite the passage of the legislative instrument required to operationalise the Act, while proposing that the Ghana National Research Fund communicate decisions on grant applications within 42 days of their closing dates.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng further advocated a matching-fund arrangement under which the national research fund would provide additional support to competitive research funding raised by public universities and research institutions.
Commitment
The Vice-Chancellor of UCC, Prof. Denis Worlanyo Aheto, said the university's research performance required renewed commitment and investment to sustain its international standing.
He said the university was exploring mechanisms to motivate researchers and improve institutional performance.
The Vice-Chancellor announced that management would increase annual research grant support to provide funding for more proof-of-concept projects and strengthen the capacity of the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC) to support researchers from proposal development to implementation and reporting.
Research grants
The Director of DRIC, Prof. David Teye Doku, disclosed that UCC had received 82 applications for research support grants this year, representing a 6.5 per cent increase over the previous year, with 42 projects selected for funding.
He said the university's research funding had more than doubled between 2000 and 2025, while its Scopus-indexed publications had tripled over the same period due partly to initiatives such as a Research Summer School, UCC Early Career Network, research capacity-building programmes across the university's five colleges and the coordination of the institutional research agenda.
More than 40 individuals and groups across UCC Schools and Colleges were awarded grants, while 16 researchers were recognised for their research work and innovations.
Professor of Social Psychology at DRIC, Prof. Francis Annor, urged successful grant recipients to comply with implementation timelines and reporting requirements to avoid delays in executing their projects.
