The Directorate of Research Innovation and Consultancy (DRIC) has organised a day’s workshop on Publication Outlets, Researcher Visibility and External Engagement to explain the need for lecturers to publish beyond Ghana.

The workshop was also aimed at building the capacity of lecturers to improve their writing skills.

Opening the workshop, the Director of DRIC, Prof. Samuel Annim, urged lecturers to sign onto the Google Scholar platform so as to make themselves visible to the world through their publications.

He noted, ”It is through Google Scholar that will make your works known across the nooks and crannies of the world”.

Prof. Annim announced that the Directorate would organise workshops on Grantmanship and Mentorship during the second semester of this academic year.

He said the Directorate would engage with lecturers on the need for them to do away with unsolicited research and embrace solicited research.

“Our core business of doing unsolicited research for promotion is coming to an end,” he said, adding that “this is the time that we need to think about solicited research.This is the time to think about how to respond to calls for proposals, especially from outlets that are internationally recognised…”

On the workshop on Mentorship, Prof. Annim indicated that there was the need to redefine mentorship in the University away from the practice where at the point of interview “they give you somebody that you don’t know whether you have chemistry with the person or you don’t know whether you have the same research interest with the person and all that you see from the person is at the end or periodically you go and a form is signed.”

To this end,he noted that,henceforth,every year, DRIC would engage with relatively younger colleague lecturers to send vague drafts to the Directorate for seasoned researchers,either in the University or outside, for assessment.

“Whatever you are thinking about just bring it. Let’s see that you have an idea on paper and giving out that the idea will bear you up with a seasoned researcher in the University and if we cannot find one in the University, we will go beyond the University,” Prof. Annim said.

He stressed that “This workshop is also to help younger colleagues to move on the ladder as far as publications are concerned.”

The DRIC Director gave credit to the immediate past Vice-Chancellor, Prof. D.D Kuupole, for initiating the Research Support Grant(RSG) in deepening research in the University.

Prof. Annim also commended the current Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah, for increasing the Grant from GH 100,000 to GH 500,000.

He said the Vice-Chancellor had advised the Directorate to diversify the portfolio of the Research Support Grant.

Consequently, Prof. Annim mentioned that the Research Support Grant had three levels, namely Individual Group RSG, Inter-departmental RSG and Policy and Practice-Oriented RSG.

He announced that, in April 2017, the Directorate would hold Researcher Awards ceremony to reward deserving lecturers and therefore encouraged lecturers to apply for the Grant.

The Deputy Director of DRIC, Dr. Frederick Ato Armah, took participants through Authorship, Conflict, Data salami slicing; Challenges with the peer review process and attributes of a successful researcher. Other areas were Getting intimate with publish or perish calculator; Identifying credible outlets for research outputs; Useful toolkits and reporting guidelines for academics and researchers.