Three officials from the University of Rhode Island (URI), United States of America (USA) have paid a courtesy call on the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ghartey Ampiah. The officials were the Senior Manager at the Coastal Resources Center, URI, Dr. Brian Crawford, Prof. Brietta Oaks from the College of Health Sciences, and the Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, Dr. Gifty Ako-Adounvo. They were accompanied by the Chief-of-Party of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Sustainable Fisheries Management Project, Dr. Raymond Babanawo. The visit was aimed at strengthening the already existing collaboration between URI and UCC and to explore other areas the two institutions could work together. Dr. Brian Crawford said the collaboration between URI and UCC in the fisheries sector have been very beneficial to the country. He commended UCC especially members of the Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (DFAS) for their rich expertise in the fisheries and coastal management which is significantly contributing to the positive transformation of the fisheries sector in Ghana. He was confident that the two institutions would continue to work together to transform the fisheries sector and other areas of interest to both partners. The Head of DFAS, Dr. Noble Asare said the University had earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with URI to run dual degrees at the Ph. D level. He indicated that plans were far advanced for the implementation of the dual degrees. He stated that UCC through its School of Graduate Studies in collaboration with DFAS intends to pilot the dual degree with students coming through the African Centre of Excellence for Coastal Resilience (ACECoR) at the College of Environment and Life Sciences (CELS), URI. Dr. Asare also noted that some of the 15 Ph. D candidates selected by ACECoR have already expressed their interest and about five are expected to join the first cohort for the dual degrees. As per the arrangement, he noted that the students would spend two semesters at URI during the entire period of the programme. He assured that the two partners through their respective graduate schools would soon finalise all the modalities for the full implementation of the dual degrees to allow more students from both institutions to enrol in the programme. Responding, the Vice-Chancellor was grateful to URI for the good working relationship with UCC. He noted that UCC would continue to carry out its responsibilities to strengthen the collaboration. “I am happy that we have moved away from the paperwork to tackle the actuals and this will boost the profile of UCC & URI”. The Vice-Chancellor also indicated that the collaboration between UCC and URI was one of the best adding that “It has taken UCC very far and I must commend all the people from URI and UCC involved in this collaboration” He commended DFAS for providing great opportunities for its students through international collaborations.