Institutional development · Research, innovation and assessment · Ghana
Ghana's trade minister calls on KNUST alumni to bridge campus research and industry
Speaking at KNUST's 14th alumni congress and homecoming, Ghana's trade and industry minister asked graduates to put their skills, contacts and resources behind innovation-led industrial growth.
Why it matters: Universities designing alumni programmes can note a minister's appeal for graduates to act as brokers between campus research and industry.
Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, Ghana's Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry and herself a graduate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, called on its alumni to apply their know-how, contacts and resources to industrial development driven by research and innovation, the university reported.
She made the remarks at the 14th Global Biennial Congress and Alumni Homecoming, whose theme was "KNUST Day to Global Eminence: The Transformative Role of Alumni".
According to the university, she argued that closer joint working between KNUST, its graduates, companies and the state was required to convert academic strength into industrial expansion.
She identified technology transfer, product development, agro-processing and manufacturing as openings, and asked firms to partner with the university's researchers and students.
Editor’s view
Scott James, Research and Innovation Editor
The appeal was aimed at KNUST alumni and at the companies the minister asked to partner with its researchers and students. If graduates take on the brokering role she outlined, linking campus research with firms and opening doors for recent graduates, then KNUST and peer universities will need to decide how to structure alumni participation in technology transfer and product development.
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