The Director of the Institute of Industrial Research (IIR), one of the 13 institutes under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Dr Francis Boateng Agyenim, has advocated the allocation of one per cent of Ghana’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to research by the government.
Such a move, he indicated would help the CSIR to fully undertake various research which would be beneficial to the citizenry as most of its activities were mostly donor funded or driven.
Dr Agyenim made this known at the maiden edition of the CSIR-IIR annual research and industry meeting held in Accra earlier this month.
The purpose of the meeting was to engage with industry players and other stakeholders to deliberate on ways to bridge the gap between research and industry.
“For best practices, governments fund research, not by just by paying their salaries. Governments provide research fund, identify industrial areas of research and call for proposals for organisations to compete and win, and implement them. This is what I call for”, Dr Agyenim emphasised.
Touching on zero waste management, Dr Agyenim noted the IIR had developed a technological model for the recycling of waste which seen no waste leave the institute for the last four years.
The CSIR-IIR, he said, intended to expand the technology to other state institutions which involve the institutions paying the amount they had to pay to waste collection companies to CSIR-IIR for its implementation.
He further noted that the IIR intended to partner with the private sector to run facilities developed by the institute such as waste incinerators, while it provides support by way of research.
Dr Agyenim again noted that ideological differences between research scientists and marketing personnel at the institute sometimes created a challenge that affect its commercial mandate.
According to him, industry partnership was the best way to help enable CSIR-IIR to commercialise its research outputs as commercialisation was not a specialisation of research scientists.
On his part, Lawyer Kwame Jantuah, the Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), underscored the need for IIR to establish its own marketing, business, and research centres in order to enable it commercialise its operations.
That, he explained, would enable the CSIR-IIR become financially stable as it would be able to generate enough funds to embark in various research and commercialise its outcome to the public.
The Chairman of the AGI also implored CSIR-IIR to hold the government accountable and engage with political parties to ensure that policies on research were included in their (political parties) campaign manifestos.
Another concern raised by Industrial players was the lack of effective communication by the CSIR-IIR to promote the outcomes of its research works.
According to them, due to the lack of effective communication, most industry players did not recognise the work of IIR, and how research could help solve industry problems.
The industry players, therefore, urged the CSIR-IIR to engage the media to discuss, advertise and promote their research works to the public and industry.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
