By Comfort Sena Fetrie-Akagbor
Tamale, Sept 14, GNA – Professor Seidu Al-Hassan, Vice-chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), has entreated senior faculty members, especially professors and technocrats, to improve their mentorship of the young ones, who work under them.
He said this would enable them to gain experience in research to help solve development problems in the country.
He said, “This can be done through coaching, supervision, joint publication and presentation at conferences, as well as teaching them how to research, publish and solve problems in society.”
Professor Al-Hassan made the call in a speech read on his behalf during the opening of the 16th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference (AIC) organised in Tamale by UDS in collaboration with Institute for Interdisciplinary Research (IIR).
The two-day conference was on the theme: “Global Financial, Environmental and Health Crises: The SDGs at a Crossroads.”
The AIC is one of the University’s flagship programmes, organised annually for researchers, students, and professors within and outside the University to share their research works and experiences with young researchers and peers to build professional relations.
The conference was also to provide a learning ground for young researchers, especially Masters and PhD students, to showcase their research proposals and findings for comments and suggestions to improve their research works.
Professor Al-Hassan said the theme was purposefully chosen by the organisers considering the current global financial, environmental and health crises, and their impact on society and academic work.
He stated that the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts, inflation, debt tightening, climate change, diseases, and other issues had negative impact on humanity.
He urged universities and other institutions to take the responsibility to undertake research to provide the needed evidence to inform policy formulation and implementation for sustainable development of the country.
He said researchers come out with quality evidence generated through research to help solve development challenges.
Professor Al-Hassan appealed to government to establish a scheme to award best mentors at the universities annually to encourage mentorship in the universities and other higher educational institutions.
Professor Mamudu Akudugu, Director of IIR, reiterated the commitment of the IIR to promote research excellence for development impact in the university and other institutions to improve innovative research for communities and national development needs.
He added that the IIR would also promote the basic, applied and collaborative researches with industry, communities and institutions of higher learning to address rural problems in the communities.
Professor Hamdiyah Alhassan, Director of Kazuhiko Takeuchi Centre for Sustainability and Resilience at UDS, appealed to researchers to support government to achieve the SDGs.
GNA