By Eric Appah Marfo
Accra, Oct. 13, GNA – Professor Abigail Opoku Mensah, Acting Administrator of the Ghana National Research Fund (GNRF), has called for increased domestic investment in scientific research and innovation to reduce reliance on foreign grants and accelerate technological development.
She made the call at the opening of the Ghana residential programme of the UK Media Excellence for Emerging Technologies (UK MEET) Fellowship in Accra.
The Fellowship is delivered by Imperial College London through Imperial Global Ghana, in partnership with the British High Commission in Accra and Nigeria, with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
The initiative seeks to strengthen the role of journalism in ensuring that emerging technologies are accurately reported, critically examined, and explained in ways that help the public to understand their implications.
Prof. Opoku Mensah said sustainable domestic investment was essential to building a resilient national research and innovation ecosystem.
She said Ghanaian universities and public research institutions had contributed to innovation and human capital development over the years.
However, the country continued to benefit substantially from technological spillovers from research and innovations developed abroad.
The Acting Administrator said research funding in Ghana had historically been fragmented, with a significant proportion of support coming from development partners. This, she said, created vulnerabilities whenever donors changed their funding priorities.
“The actual investments required to accelerate a country’s innovation must first of all come from domestic sources,” she said.
Prof. Opoku Mensah said African Union member states had committed to investing at least one per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in research and development, but Ghana, like many other African countries, remained below that target.
She said sustained calls from academia and industry for a national research fund had culminated in the passage of the Ghana National Research Fund Act, 2020 (Act 1056).
However, she noted that the passage of legislation alone did not automatically translate into an operational fund.
Five years after the Act was passed, a Governing Board was inaugurated in June 2025, after which the Government provided an initial seed fund of GH¢50 million to establish the Fund.
She said a Secretariat had since been established, with support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UNESCO and the National Research Foundation of South Africa, to develop the systems needed to ensure the Fund’s effective operation.
Prof. Opoku Mensah said President John Dramani Mahama formally launched the Fund on June 16, 2026, and announced an additional allocation of GH¢100 million to operationalise it.
She said the Fund was also working with the Ministry of Finance to fully operationalise the statutory quarterly disbursements equivalent to 0.5 per cent of national revenue.
The Fund had adopted a Research and Innovation Strategy for 2026–2030, focusing on research talent, competitive funding, industry partnerships, policy support, sustainable financing and strong governance.
The strategy identified five national research missions: food systems; health innovation and biosecurity; climate and environmental sustainability; digital and industrial transformation; and governance, policy and social systems.
Prof. Opoku Mensah said two multilateral pilot funding calls had already been launched through co-funding arrangements with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI).
The calls covered artificial intelligence, health and disruptive technologies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, with two additional national calls expected before the end of 2026.
She urged journalists to strengthen public understanding of scientific research and technological innovation, emphasising that effective communication was essential to ensuring that knowledge generated through research translated into tangible benefits for Ghanaians.
Collaboration among the Government, researchers, industry, development partners and the media was critical to advancing Ghana’s research and innovation agenda.
The Ghanaian cohort of this year’s UK MEET Fellowship comprises 30 journalists who began the programme with virtual orientation sessions on October 6 and 8, ahead of a residential convening in Accra from October 11 to 17, 2026.
GNA
Edited by Agnes Boye-Doe
Reporter: Eric Appah Marfo
Email: [email protected]