University of Ghana, Danish universities collaborate
The Danish Development Agency (DANIDA) under the Building Stronger Universities (BSU) initiative has awarded 15 million DKK for phase two of the Building Stronger Universities (BSU) ll Programme.
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The BSU, “Building Stronger Universities in Developing Countries,” is a partnership between research and higher education institutions in developing countries and Danish universities.
Goal of initiative
A statement issued by the University of Ghana in Accra said the long-term goal of the initiative was to make the participating institutions stronger to play an increasing role in the economic, social and political development of the societies in which they were located; to function as nodes of innovation and knowledge production, providing solutions to local/domestic and global challenges; and produce skilled and motivated graduates that could contribute to the further development of their societies.
The BSU II commenced on November 1, 2014 and will end on November 1, 2016.
The statement said the University of Ghana would receive nine million DKK (60 per cent of the budget), while the Northern (Danish) partner would receive six million DKK, representing 40 per cent of the total budget.
Training of PhD students
The benefits of the phase one of the BSU programme include the training of over a 1000 students on varied PhD courses and the award of PhD scholarships to students registered across the University of Ghana to take part of their PhD coursework in Danish universities such as the University of Copenhagen and the University of Aarhus.
The statement said in the BSU phase one programme, universities in Denmark were actively involved in the design and implementation of the programme activities.
DANIDA has, however, taken over the management of the BSU programme from phase two and is implementing the programme as part of their portfolio in a direct cooperation with selected universities in the South.
DANIDA facilitated a match-making directly between selected universities in the South and Danish universities and research centres.
At the University of Ghana, the BSU II co-ordination team is led by the ORID Director of Research, Professor Andrew Adjei, and supported by scholars from the Department of Geography and Resource Development, School of Public Health, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, School of Medicine and Dentistry and the Department of Marketing and Customer Management at the Business School.
ORID provides excellent support through a cohort of administrative and financial personnel.
Co-ordination team
The BSU II co-ordination team at the University of Ghana comprises Prof. Paul Yankson, Dr Kwadwo Owusu, Dr Mawuli Dzodzomenyo, Dr Michael Ofori, Dr Goerge Obeng Adjei and Prof. Robert Hinson.
On the Danish side, the BSU team is headed by Dr Finn Plauborg of the Department of Agroecology at the Aarhus University in Denmark.
The processes leading to the acceptance of the inception report and award of the nine million DKK grant in November 2014 entailed a series of meetings at the University of Ghana and also at Danish universities that are part of the BSU II programme.
Organised under three work packages, the overall objective of BSU II will be to enhance the capacity of the University of Ghana to achieve its objective of transformation into a first-class research university.
These Danish institutions are Aalborg University, AAU (Department of Business and Management); Aarhus University, AU (Department of Bioscience, Department of Clinical Medicine, Department of Agroecology, Department of Public Health); Copenhagen University, KU (Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, Department of Science Education, Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology); Technical University of Denmark, DTU (National Food Institute) and CG Consulting, CGC.