Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) has advised the academia and researchers to take advantage of grant workshops for empowerment to access grants successfully for research work.
Prof. Asare-Bediako said grant writing was an important aspect of any academic institution and an avenue for integrating funds into a university, adding it also offered an opportunity for the institution to acquire the needed experience in research.
He stated funds from the central government to support the universities for research were inadequate, hence the need for the universities to find innovative ways of generating funds to work progressively to achieve their respective visions and missions.
Prof. Asare-Bediako gave the advice when he was speaking at the opening of a three-day workshop of UENR-Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) Early Career Researcher Grant Writing at the University’s campus in Sunyani.
It was under the auspices of the UENR Centre for Professional Development (CePDev) in collaboration with the Department of Forest Science and the Centre for Grants, Research and Innovation with funding support from ACU and Regional Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (RCEES), UENR.
Participants comprised lecturers, researchers, graduate students and representatives from some public companies and organisations and it sought to sharpen their skills in grant writing by touching on the different aspects of the processes.
Prof. Asare-Bediako said the university before November last year had five projects, but currently, the number had risen to 23.
He hope the workshop would empower participants to contribute for the university to write for more grants successfully so that by next year the number of projects would have been increased.
Participants during the three days would be taken through topics such as the Fundamentals and Elements of Grant Proposals, Writing the Narratives, Developing Timelines and the Milestone of the Grant Proposal, Enhancing Skills in Grant Writing Submissions Process-Proofreading, Online Submission and Beginning Your Journey-Identifying the Problem Using Problem Tree Analysis.
The rest are Integrating Gender Responsiveness into the Grant Proposal, Identifying and Building Effective Partnerships and Networks in the Institution, Basic Systematic Literature Review, Developing Project Budgets with Justification, Understanding UENR Grant Calling Guidelines.
