Ghana’s research lead wins continental recognition

Eric Danquah, Chairman of the Ghana National Research Fund’s (GNRF) Governing Board, has been elected a Fellow of the Liberia Academy of Sciences (LAS), a distinction recognising his contributions to plant genetics, crop improvement, and agricultural research across Africa. His work has shaped institutions, trained generations of plant breeders, and strengthened the continent’s capacity to address food security challenges.

The honour comes weeks after Ghana formally launched the GNRF on 16 June, when President John Dramani Mahama unveiled a fund backed by GHS 100 million in fresh capital, on top of an earlier GHS 50 million in seed funding, for the 2026 grant cycle.

Mahama named food security and climate-smart agriculture technologies among the Fund’s priority research areas, a direct line to the kind of crop science and plant breeding work that has defined Danquah’s career.

For Ghanaian researchers, the Fund also marks a shift in who sets the country’s research agenda. As University of Ghana’s director of research and innovation, Doodoo Arhin, noted at the launch, more than 70 per cent of research conducted in the country is currently externally funded, making domestic vehicles like the GNRF central to research that answers Ghana’s own priorities.

That same push for homegrown, continentally-owned research financing runs through the SGCI-STISA-2034 Multilateral Research Call.

As Chairman of the GNRF Governing Board, Danquah’s decades of work in collaborative agricultural research reflects the spirit of the STISA-2034 agenda, which seeks to harness science, technology and innovation to accelerate Africa’s sustainable development.

The Call invites multidisciplinary, multi-country research consortia to develop solutions in five priority areas: agriculture, health, energy, environment, and artificial intelligence and digital technologies.

The Call is supported through a partnership of African Science Granting Councils, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Government of Norway, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and Wellcome.

Researchers and eligible institutions are invited to explore the call, identify potential consortium partners, and submit expressions of interest before the deadline of 25 September 2026 (23:59 EDT).

Learn more about the call, access the Research Matchmaking platform, and begin your application at https://call.sgci.africa/

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Published on 12 August 2026By Jackie Opara-Fatoye