The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has appealed to educational institutions to focus their research on addressing social challenges facing the country.
He said it was important that research institution find new and effective ways to cooperate with industry and the corporate world to perform high-quality strategic research to address societal and economic challenges.
President Akufo-Addo made the call at a thanksgiving service in Accra on Friday, as part of a year-long celebration of the 75th anniversary of the University of Ghana (UG), Legon.
The anniversary is on the theme: “Nurturing resilience: Adopting technology, embracing humanism.”
He stated that the UG had consistently delivered on its objective of providing world-class human assets and capacities to meet Ghana’s development needs, adding that “The University continues to be the centre of many scientific and technological innovations. The diversity of this research efforts and output in various disciplines, including social sciences, law, natural sciences, medicine, agriculture, environment, and energy, has been internationally acclaimed.”
The President, however, stressed that UG must broaden its scope by undertaking and implementing research that provided information and capabilities on which society could rely on to help the country compete successfully on the global arena.
“I ask the university of Ghana and all tertiary institutions in the country to find innovative and effective ways of linking up with industry and the corporate world to engage in quality strategic research targeted at finding practical solutions to real life challenges of our society and thereby help actualise research findings to the benefit of our country and its citizenry,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo said the government was ready to offer the funding needed to position the university as a research-intensive institution.
“My government fully supports and shares your vision of becoming a research-intensive university, and we will do everything we can to assist you in realising it,” he said.
BY CLIFF EKUFUL
