To build effective linkages between research academies and industry so as to internalise innovative research products, Ghanaian government has concluded plans to establish Innovation and Research Commercialisation Centre.
Business Hilights Bureau chief reports that the facility, to be known as the Ghana Innovation and Research Commercialisation Centre (GIRC-Centre) would also facilitate the translation of research findings and other innovations into products and service for commercialisation.
In addition, it would promote partnership between government, public research institutions, industries, academia and the private sector to ensure that the collaborations led to enhanced productivity.
Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, disclosed this at a consultative forum to discuss fundamental issues and challenges for effective linkages between research-academia and industry.
The meeting, which brought together researchers and scientists from various institutions, deliberated on the national innovation system of Ghana in relation to technology transfer and commercialisation of research outputs.
For now, the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, a pioneering business incubator with focus on developing small and medium scale enterprises ventures in the green economy, is funding the stakeholder meeting to fully develop and perfect the concept.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the GRC-Centre was one of the strategic interventions among others at the heart of the new National Science Technology and Innovation Policy being reviewed by the Government.
He explained that the centre was crucial to the development of the country and the Government was poised to transforming the innovation system by providing enabling environment for it to thrive.
Through the Centre, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the Government would seek to satisfy the demands of industry and encourage researchers and graduates to participate in incubation programmes to establish spin-off knowledge-based companies.
The country’s prosperity, he noted, depended on her capabilities at the microeconomic level, the ability of firms, large and small, to produce goods and services productively and competitively.
According to him, “Our national innovation system faces a lot of challenges including fragmented science technology and innovation institutions, poor coordination of research and development activities and poor linkages between research and industry”.
