A section of senior members (academic) of the College of Health and Allied Sciences (CoHAS), University of Cape Coast (UCC) are participating in a workshop on Grant and Proposal Writing at the Coconut Grove Hotel in Cape Coast.

The workshop, which will span a five-day period, is being organised by the Biomedical and Clinical Research Centre of CoHAS-UCC in collaboration with African Centre of Excellence for Population, Health and Policy, as well as Bayero University, Kano in Nigeria.

The mandate of the Centre is to promote research and grantsmanship within CoHAS in particular and the University of Cape Coast in general. 

Topics to be treated by the participants during the five-day workshop include; ‘Understanding the funder and knowing the funder requirements’, ‘An overview of the grant scoring process’ and ‘Overview of study designs for qualitative studies’. Others are ‘Data management’, ‘Defining your output/outcome/impact variables’, ‘Overview of mixed-method research’ and ‘Budgeting’ amongst others.

Addressing the participants during the opening ceremony, the Director of the Biomedical and Clinical Research Centre, Prof. Samuel Kyei, observed that the workshop would improve grant proposal writing skills, and foster more collaborations among lecturers within the University and with external partners. 

"While in our jurisdiction the mantra is “publish or perish", elsewhere it is to get a grant or perish. This new demand to get grant or perish is catching up with us quickly and as an institution, we need to up our game before it is too late" he said.

Provost of CoHAS-UCC, Prof. Martins Ekor, in a group shot with some facilitators and participants

Against this backdrop, Prof. Kyei indicated that CoHAS was making untiring efforts to use workshops to refresh and build capacity of academic staff for grant proposal writing to prepare faculty for the challenge of research and project financing. 

The Director was of the hope that UCC-industry relationship would be enhanced as the research output from "our University could be translated into finished products and or inform policy for the benefit of society." 

The Provost of CoHAS, Prof. Martins Ekor, in his remark, entreated participants to take the workshop seriously and noted that research by academics in the College would put UCC on a giant pedestal. 

He said UCC had made remarkable strides in research, stressing that participants should be able to get grants to explore new ideas and expertise in research after the workshop. 

Facilitators for the workshop are from the Directorate of Research, Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC) - UCC, University of Ghana, and Bayero University.

There will also be networking and brainstorming sessions, where issues regarding grant and proposal writing will be discussed.

Participants will be presented with certificates for the five-day encounter.

Source: Documentation and Information Section - UCC