Straight to 21st Century Research Fund Scheme for Ghana: A review of the Ghana National Research Fund Bill, 2019

Straight to 21^st Century Research Fund Scheme for Ghana: A review of the Ghana National Research Fund Bill, 2019

 

This writing covers points of concerns and additional recommendations on the new Ghana National Research Fund Bill, 2019. In 2016 I made the effort to contribute my input to the development of the NPP Campaign Manifesto on the science and technology section. I have therefore campaigned for the drafting of the National Research Fund Bill with the hope that it will capture the critical ideas I shared in my memo to the then Vice-Presidential candidate Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. The draft bill is finally here, and I am quite disappointed that it did not capture the essence of the NPP Manifesto promises made in the 2016 Elections.  The least the drafters could have done was to capture the entire concept from the manifesto and then add more features to make it compatible with current global trends and the needs of 21^st Century economy. As it is now, I feel it captures only 30% of the concept and leaves a large space for improvement. When it comes to the issue of research, science and technology, no country can afford to use outdated schemes to administer its programme. There is the need to commence operation with a modern 21^st century world class concept to attract the best from the people of Ghana both home and abroad.

 

NPP Science, Technology, Innovation and Tertiary Education Policy – 

2016-2020: Memo by Dr. Patrick Kobina Arthur

https://pakar1-corner.blogspot.com/2020/06/npp-science-technology-innovation-and.html

 

Ghana National Research Fund Bill, 2019

https://www.parliament.gh/epanel/docs/bills/Ghana%20National%20Research%20fund%20Bill,%202019(1).pdf#viewer.action=download

 

 

Below are the point by point review of concerns:

 

Point 1

 

1. (a) provide financial resources to support, promote and

publicise research, technology generation and innovation

in the tertiary and research institutions specified in the First

Schedule;

 

Not all the important research has to be publicized.

Example is funding to small business/research-based organizations working on proprietary technology with globally competitive outcomes, which has the potential to boost the national economy. All major National Research Funds across the world do this.

 

Point 2

 

3. (a) seed money of fifty million Ghana Cedis specifically

allocated for the start-up of the Fund;

 

In November 2017, the Minister of Education announced that the seed fund of 50 million dollars had been approved by cabinet. How did the currency change to Ghana Cedis in this draft bill?

 

Point 3

5. (1) The governing body of the Fund is a Board consisting

   

      (a) a chairperson;

      (b) the Administrator of the Fund;

 

Persons appointed to this role should be people with proven track record in research and are internationally recognized for winning international grants to bring to the job international best practice and also sound scientific leadership.

 

Point 4

(2) The members of the Board shall be appointed by the President

      in accordance with article 70 of the Constitution.

 

It is important to have representation on the governing board by organizations such as Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, CSIR, UTAG, TUTAG, Vice Chancellors Ghana and equivalent from TUs. To ensure independent advice and direction free from political influence.

 

Point 5

7. (1) A member of the Board shall hold office for a period of three

years and is eligible for re-appointment, but a member shall not be

appointed for more than two terms.

 

The tenure of three years is too short. NIH Director has been in office from 2009 to 2017 and was re-appointed to continue. NIH is the major research fund administration in the USA. There is a merit to directors having longer stay in office.

 

 

Point 6

Ministerial directives

13. The Minister may give policy directives consistent with the object

of this Act to the Board and the Board shall comply.

 

To prevent short-term interruptions of the operational vision of the GNRF, the Board should rely on operational guidelines which are crafted every ten years and subject to parliamentary approval and not short-term ministerial directives. They should also have a mechanism to respond to events such as outbreaks, etc. to modify its operational guidelines without the influence of the sitting minister.

 

Point 7

Appointment of Administrator

16. (1) The President shall, in accordance with article 195 of the

Constitution, appoint an Administrator for the Fund.

 

Subject to Point 3: That is a person with proven track record in research and are internationally recognized for winning international grants to bring to the job international best practice and also sound scientific leadership.

 

 

Point 8

Appointment of Deputy Administrator

18. (1) The President shall, in accordance with article 195 of the

Constitution, appoint a Deputy Administrator for the Fund.

 

Subject to Point 3 That is a person with proven track record in research and are internationally recognized for winning international grants to bring to the job international best practice and also sound scientific leadership.

 

 

 

Point 9

22. For the purpose of achieving the object of the Fund, the Board

shall apply

 

The percentage of fund allotted to different disciplines should be left open to the discretion and the results of the needs assessment exercise conducted by the board from time to time. Fixed percentages to the different discipline will lead to uncompetitive outcomes.

 

 

Point 10

 

Eligibility for funding

28. (1) A person qualifies to apply for funding for research if that

person

(a) is a citizen of Ghana;

 

All over the world, research funding is offered to all researchers who are employed by national institutions. The issue of being in the employment of the national institution is key and not the citizenship of the researcher. There are many Ghanaian researchers holding Ghanaian passports who work in other countries and are eligible to apply for and win research funding in those countries.

 

 

Point 11

 

The Minister may, by legislative instrument, make Regulations

for the effective implementation of this Act.

 

The GNRF should be given operational independence and not be subject to the strings of the minister to ensure that highest professional competence and leadership is obtained in the national interest.

 

Additional Recommendations:

 

1. The GNRF must create a PhD fellowship programme with immediate effect after commencing operations to select brilliant students from the undergraduate programme to ensure that high caliber of talent is retained in the country. The absence of such a programme has driven many of the brightest of Ghana’s youth abroad many of whom never return to the country. The fellows will be distributed among the departments and unit offering graduate programmes in collaborations with research institutes. Fellows should be provided with competitive travel award to gain international experience during the time of their fellowship.

 

2. In keeping with talent development agenda, Postdoctoral and Senior fellowship programmes should be created for early and mid-career researchers in line with international trends. This will ensure the necessary capacity building to drive institutional advancement and economic development in Ghana.

 

3. The GNRF must as a strategic development create a high end, shared core technology facilities covering several key areas of research and development. Core facilities are modern approaches of driving research by clustering high end equipment in a single location to be given the best of everything, which is not possible in a distributed system. This will ensure maximum usage and constant care, attention and innovation. Core facilities such as chemical analysis core, bioimaging core, genome sequencing core, engineering design core, Physical lab core, IT core, etc. These core facilities will be provided with dedicated funding and supervision by the GNRF board and the host institutions to support the needs of the research communities in Ghana.

 

4. Special funding scheme for multi-disciplinary research programmes target big challenges like locust invasion, endemic diseases, waste management, flooding, etc. A scheme of this nature will draw all the expertise needed to use the power of graduate training and research to deal with complex problems and derive outcomes such as a sustainable breakthroughs and management systems which can be established as enterprises beyond the term of the research programmes.

 

5. Funding schemes for private small business to conduct research and development activities. Research funding should not be targeted at training, education and knowledge generation outcomes only. The outcomes should include industrial production and services to drive economic development and employment creation. The Grand Challenges model of funding can be employed for this scheme based on a four phased approach with increasing funding offer from phase 1 to 4. Phase 1 is typical – proof of concept; Phase 2 – transition to scale; Phase 3 – Low-medium scale operation; Phase 4 – large scale operation. The funding offering can be a mixture of grant, loan and equity.

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NPP Science, Technology, Innovation and Tertiary Education Policy – 2016-2020: Memo by Dr. Patrick Kobina Arthur

NPP Science, Technology, Innovation and Tertiary Education Policy – 

2016-2020: Memo by Dr. Patrick Kobina Arthur

 

The vision of the NPP for the economic transformation of Ghana is hinged on a durable and strategic STI policy that is dynamic, transformational and comprehensive. Every cedi invested in research and development will give back 50 cedi to the economy^$$.

 

The following key policy hallmarks will be instituted to create the STI environment that drives the economic development of Ghana in a competitive and sustainable way.

1)   Science, technology, innovation council – STIC^$

Create an apex STI advisory body to provide researched policy framework and policy recommendations to Government in collaboration with the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.

 

Establish the new national science fund to take 2 % of the country’s GDP for fund research and development activities in Ghana with a fund administration with oversight from the STIC.

 

2)   Centres of Excellence in Research and Development

Establish a flagship system of Ghana centres of excellence (GCEs) across the country that networks all High Education Institutes (HEIs). Including all other research organizations such as the big hospitals, national reference laboratories, GNPC and Ghana Gas, utility corporations (VRA, ECG, GRIDCo, Ghana Water) CSIR institutes and CRIG.

 

The GCEs will cover themes such as:

01-Biomedical research

02-Biomedical engineering

03-Pharmaceutical technology and Bioequivalence Research

04-Crop improvements and seed technology

05-Environment and sanitation engineering

06-Energy engineering

07-Manufacturing equipment engineering

08-Agricultural technology,

09-Food process engineering,

10-Marine engineering,

11-Textile and clothing technology,

12-Transport engineering,

13-Building technology,

14-Climate and Ecosystem research,

15-Electronics and Electronic Assembly,

16-Advanced ICT engineering

 

Mandate all GCEs to create multi-disciplinary graduate schools to drive youth training and to conduct their core activities while maintaining permanent staff strength that is lean and effective. Large bioequivalence research centres (LBRC) should be established in all institution in Ghana that provides medical training; these are UG, KNUST, UCC, UDS and UHAS. The grand goal is to reduce imports of expensive pharmaceutical by 50% in a decade of the commencement of the projects. Additionally, the LBRC must develop key and viable interventions for all unmet health needs in the country and export the some to the Africa region and the developing world.

 

 

3)   Technology Parks (Industrial development centres)

Development of technology transfer centres and business incubation hubs close to GCEs to carryout private sector led commercialization activities. Establish specific venture capital schemes to invest in the commercialization activities using the funds tier-2 capital of the pension system.

 

4)   Grand Challenge Scheme

Establish the Grand Challenges Corporation as a subsidiary of the national science fund. The Grand Challenges is currently gaining currency across the world after the Gates Foundation initiated it in 2003. This scheme is to employ the grand challenges model to drive innovation by making various tiers of competitive grants available to all innovators from all sectors of society. The model encourages integrated innovation by linking technology to social needs and social capital and drive them towards enterprise creation and high impact interventions.

 

5)   Postdoctoral programme

This programme is to cover all the thematic areas of the GCEs system nation-wide. A competitive and very generous scheme to motivate and build the capacity of young innovators for accelerated national development.

 

The programme will provide support over a period of 6 years to ensure the steady and productive capacity of building the country’s most talented innovators. To aim to attract and retain Ghanaians who have trained outside the country and are looking for opportunities to return.

 

The postdoctoral fellows are to be empowered to be the lifeblood of the GCEs and constitute main responsible personnel for the graduate training programmes. Fellows will be actively promoted into the technology parks with their research and development projects and provided with venture funding support.

 

6)   Graduate training programme

This will be the main engine for the training of the new class of highly qualified scientists and engineers for the technological advancement of Ghana. This will be very well funded training programme within the GCEs and with many opportunities provided to ensure continuous global exchange.

 

7)   Design, entertainment, science, technology and innovation (DESTI) Programme

The culture of innovation must be a constant part of the education system especially at the senior high and the undergraduate levels. This programme will provide funding and set agenda for private groups of youth and established youth organizations to organize fairs and competitions that allow student to showcase their original inventions. Strong mentoring from the GCEs will be organized for these DESTI groups to ensure that pathways to scale are provided.

 

8)   Technical and Vocational training

Every innovation ecosystem needs a strong cadre of well-trained technicians to ensure the implementation of the projects. The GCEs system will create a training programme for all technicians. The training will include a significant part of immersive session in the various centres for hands-on experience.

 

9)   Restructuring of Tertiary Education and the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE)

There is an urgent need to harmonize the activities in the tertiary education space. The elimination of parallel training systems such as the distinct structures for Polytechnics, Nursing schools, Agric school and Teacher training colleges should be carried to harmonize the training the standard of training across different fields. To ensure that all diploma and degree awarding institutions and programmes are controlled by the new NCTE to ensure that the same culture of training and student development benchmarks are applied across board. To this end Polytechnics must be upgraded to a fully structured Technical Universities.  Nursing schools, Agric school and Teacher training colleges must be assigned to existing Universities as satellite campuses to benefit the same standard of lecturer recruitment and training. This is expected to create the culture of lifelong learning in Ghana by allowing a harmonious switching of fields of study. The concept of Open Universities must be developed under the existing distance and continuous education programmes that are running in some Universities. Institutes of distance and continuous education must be developed in all public universities, with the mandate to create open courses. It is expected students who want to switch fields at any time in their career will take several prescribed open courses that qualifies them to undertake their new programme of study.  The new NCTE is therefore expected to go beyond the current advisory functions to the Ministry of Education to operate like the GES for the tertiary sector. The new NCTE must also absorb the functions of the National Accreditation Board to create the culture of continuous quality assurance and audit of academic programmes.

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Large scale fungal fermentation offers prospects for new cancer medicines of the future

Large scale fungal fermentation offers prospects for new cancer medicines of the future

 

By

Dr. Patrick Kobina Arthur – University of Ghana

Prof. James Adjaye – Henrich Heine University of Dusseldorf

 

The current health emergency readily brings to the fore the anxiety and desperation that having a disease condition without a viable treatment and cure can cause. The desperation can spillover the health sector to engulf the entire society in the event of an outbreak situation, where the contagion spread fast through the society. In the case of slow and silent health emergencies like cancers, the efforts to develop drugs for every specific type of cancer is limited to the priorities and the genetics of the advanced countries that have the need capacity. The leading cancers in Ghana are those affecting liver, breast, cervix/uterine and the prostate, with incidence and mortality rates ranging from 9-20% and 7-18% respectively according to the cancer country profile of 2020.

 

The unmet needs for effective and safe treatment for cancer patients in Ghana and Africa has served as the main motivation to establish new sources of anticancer drugs that can be harnessed at a low cost. Compounds produced by fungi from different ecological zones have found applications in human medicine, but the resource is far from full exploitation. We have been conducting our research over the past 10 years at the University of Ghana, Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology to determine the prospects of new cancer molecules from a collection of fungi. The efforts over the years has led the discovery of sub-fractions of the fungal extracts that possess strong effect in control fungal pathogens and some cancer cells.

 

These sub-fractions occur in unfortunately small quantities hampering detailed analysis leading to clinical development. This requires further work i to fully explore the usefulness of the substance in these important sub-fractions. To strengthen our hand in pressing onto bigger and more costly efforts, we needed to obtain deeper insights into the true potential of the substances we have which happened in to be tiny quantities. For this important work, we collaborated with Prof. Dr. James Adjaye’s team at the Heinrich Heine University in Duesseldorf - Germany who have long standing experience, advanced expertise and the technology to perform such vital deep probing experiments^1,2.

 

The results of the advanced analysis have recently been published in an international Peer reviewed scientific journal of high repute³. With Dr.  Ethel Juliet Serwaa Blessie (PhD co-supervised by Dr Patrick Kobina Arthur and Prof. James Adjaye) as first author. We could show that the extracts have anti-cancer properties - more precisely, it slowed down the growth of liver cancer cells in a dish.

 

The insights shared with the research community clearly points to a high potential for obtaining potent new cancer medicines from the fungal sources we are currently studying. This is certainly an important milestone that calls for more resources to continue the push towards the development of treatment options. This will be helpful for people who suffer cancers in Ghana and Africa for which there are no cost effective, safe and effective treatments.

 

We have obtained through the DAAD, (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst /German Academic Exchange Service - https://www.daad.de/en/ ) a competitive PhD Fellowship funding to pursue the work to further identify components within the active sub-fractions which have anti-cancer properties. We aim to work with primary colon and liver cancer cells isolated from fresh   name the cancer types tumor biopsies from Ghana to reflect the genetic background of the country and the continent. These studies will be carried out in both of our laboratories in Ghana and Germany. The team currently open to the young scientists with passion and skills in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Molecular Cell Biology and Computer Science to join to continue to deepen the gains and realize the ultimate goals.

 

In a relative effort, the team is also working at developing the local capacity for large scale fermentation to provide sufficient quantities of the active ingredients coming out of the discovery work. This is important to advance the drug development process into the pre-clinical phase which is usually the limiting step in drug discovery efforts. Many active ingredients are too difficult to produce in sufficient quantities to the wide variety of studies needed to validate a new promising chemical entity as being ideal for the expensive clinical development.

 

References:

1. Otte J, Dizdar L, Behrens B, Goering W, Knoefel WT, Wruck W, Stoecklein NH, Adjaye J. FGF Signalling in the Self-Renewal of Colon Cancer Organoids (2019). Sci Rep. 9(1):17365.  doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-53907-7.

2. Regenbrecht CR1, Jung M, Lehrach H, Adjaye J. (2008). The molecular basis of genistein-induced mitotic arrest and exit of self-renewal in embryonal carcinoma and primary cancer cell lines. BMC Med Genomics. 1:49.  doi: 10.1186/1755-8794-1-49.

3. Blessie EJ, Wruck W, Abbey BA, Ncube A, Graffmann N, Amarh V, Arthur PK, Adjaye J. (2020). Transcriptomic analysis of marine endophytic fungi extract identifies highly enriched anti-fungal fractions targeting cancer pathways in HepG2 cell lines. BMC Genomics. 21(1):265.  doi: 10.1186/s12864-020-6684-z.

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