By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
Kumasi, June 06, GNA – Professor Richard Odame Phillips, a professor of medicine, has called for an aggressive drive to raise more research funding to support Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and graduate programmes.
Scientific research innovations, according to him, were critical to balance well-being and contributed immensely to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
There is therefore the need for adequate investment in doctoral research programmes to meet at least the one percent standards set by UNESCO in its report.
“Investing in doctoral programmes is investing in a sustainable future, which is why we need to have a focus on our doctoral and graduate programmes”, he said.
Prof. Odame Phillips, who is also the Director of the Kumasi Center for Collaborative Research (KCCR) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), made the call at the opening of the 2nd annual postgraduate conference in Kumasi.
The two-day conference was organized by the KNUST College of Health Sciences.
It was held on the theme “Harnessing Postgraduate Research to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals.”
Prof. Odame Phillips said strengthening research capacities in low-middle income countries was one of the most powerful, cost-effective and sustainable means of advancing health and development, adding that, health science research, might contribute to health, social welfare and poverty reduction if the findings were applied domestically.
Touching on other strategies to transform postgraduate research, he called for scale-up in graduate training with a focus on the youth.
He also suggested that graduate training must be improved to meet all career needs, promote cultural and contextual relevance integrated into global discourse.
Prof. Odame Phillips pointed out that promoting partnerships and collaboration were key in research.
He called for the elimination of article processing charges for graduates in low-middle income countries to enable them to publish their articles.
The researcher observed that higher charges were stalling the progress of African researchers and there was an urgent call for reforms.
Prof. Ellis Owusu Dabo, Pro Vice-Chancellor, KNUST, said “we cannot transform our economies if we do not identify the problems and use research in tackling them”.
He called for collaborative efforts to tackle issues, explaining that “it is important we do not work in silos, but we work across the various sectors of the SDGs to achieve a common objective”.
GNA