KNUST Hosts First National Conference With Theme "University Outreach" Sponsored By DANIDA

KNUST National Conference on University Outreach Project

The Building Stronger Universities (BSU II) in Developing Countries Project in collaboration with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has organized its first national conference on outreach at the IDL Conference Centre, KNUST. It was a two-day programme from 30th March to 31st March, 2016. It was sponsored by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The theme was “University Outreach: Impacting the Community for Sustainable Development.” The event aimed at showcasing best practices in outreach and to collect stakeholder input into these documents.

The Outreach Project sought to build the BSU Southern Partner Universities to contribute to solving major societal challenges through communication and dissemination of research findings at all stakeholder levels. Stakeholders included farmers, district assemblies, university administrators and researchers, National Council for Tertiary Education, Ministry of Education, development partners and NGOS.

Professor William Oduro, Dean of International Programmes Office (IPO), explained that the outreach project was in collaboration with KNUST and Universities from Tanzania. He explained outreach as the interface between researchers and society.

Professor Robert Clement Abaidoo, Chairman of the BSU Project (KNUST), stated that BSU was a partnership between research and higher education institutions in developing countries and Danish universities. He affirmed that graduates from the BSU programme had been able to solve major problems in their communities. In his speech, he revealed that KNUST had not been given adequate resources to support research and that was why BSU was a welcome intervention for KNUST because it addressed these gaps in research activities.

“The project will use the central library and laboratory to facilitate research and easy access to information,” he added. He mentioned that Phase II of the project focused on research areas like agriculture, education, health, small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) among others. He explained that even though there were challenges, the BSU project was packaged in such a way that it entirely covered the research areas in all the colleges in the university to ensure transparency and a wider coverage of its operations. He implored all participants to contribute to the processes and achievements of BSU.

Professor William Otoo Ellis, Vice Chancellor, stated that the focus of the conference was outreach which was very critical for societal development. He announced that universities in Ghana were established based on specialization, which made it difficult to reach out to more Ghanaians. He declared that as universities, we need to contribute to improve lives in the community. He observed that the vision of KNUST to be “globally recognized as the premier centre of excellence in Africa for teaching in Science and Technology for development; producing high caliber graduates with knowledge and expertise to support the industrial and socio-economic development of Ghana and Africa” clearly pushed the university into outreach. He explained that in line with the vision, KNUST over the years had been focusing on outreach projects but in recent times, due to the increase in the population of students in the university, the heavy responsibilities of teaching and learning had made research suffer.

He explained that KNUST was doing everything to make outreach one of its effective pillars by establishing state-of-the-art laboratories to enhance research activities. Outreach was also a key component in assessing lecturers and a criteria for promotion. He remarked that there had been continuous training of staff to build capacity and in addition, a research fund had also been established. He also observed that a Community Impact Programme had been established to help students and staff touch lives of people in the community. He stated that all these measures had been put in place to help develop KNUST research and that the university would continue to invest in various initiatives for effective outreach to be achieved.

Her Excellency Ms. Tove Degnbol, Danish Ambassador to Ghana, spoke on the topic “Northern and Southern Cooperation as a Means for Sustainable Development.” She mentioned that the cooperation focused on the capacity to undertake high quality research, strengthened through support to the research environment and processes. She explained that this cooperation was important because there was mutual benefit as it focused on the usefulness of research to stakeholders and strengthened communication. She cited the example of Ghana’s experience in the root and tuber value chain, a project which was a cooperation between KNUST and some Danish Universities.