Thirty-Eight postraduate students of the University have received grants to support their research work under the auspices of the Samuel and Emelia Brew-Butler-SGS/GRASAG and UCC Research Grant.
The Grant which is aimed at supporting qualified graduate students to produce quality research and also enable them complete their work on time, received a total of 62 applications out of which 38 were successful after a rigorous selection process. A budget of one hundred thousand cedis was made available to be disbursed to successful applicants.
Beneficiaries received amounts ranging between 3,000 and 2, 400 Ghana cedis to support their respective research.
Speaking at the presentation ceremony, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof. George K. T. Oduro, intimated that all over Africa, universities were trying to strengthen their research bases, therefore Postgraduate studies was receiving prime attention to meet the growing demands of the rankings of universities.
In view of this, according to the Pro Vice-Chancellor, the University was also trying its possible best to create an enabling environment for the delivery of postgraduate studies in order to meet the current trends in university education the world-over.
Prof. Oduro described the grant facility as a prudent intervention since research involved a lot of money. “You need a lot of money to undertake any research, so this facility has come at an opportune time for you to do a good job and complete on record time”, he noted.
Prof. Oduro thanked the School of Graduate Studies for instituting the awards and assured that management would do everything within its power to support them to achieve the aim for which the scheme was established.
Prof. Oduro cautioned the recipients that: “the reason for the grant is to facilitate research work and not for buying other things not related to your studies. So, it is an obligation to make the SGS aware of the progress of your work at any level and also if there is the need to refocus the work, let the school know”.
The Pro-Vice-Chancellor said he was sad to learn that some students presented the same proposal for the awards. He told the students that, that bothered on plagiarism which is seriously frowned on by academia and asked them desist from such practices.
“This is a serious offence in academia, the university takes serious exception to this and you must guard against that as students”, he admonished.
He clarified rumours that, executives of GRASAG were not qualified to apply for the grant, rather, he said if any of them wanted to apply for the grant, all they needed to do was to declare that intention to the awards committee to avoid conflict of interest.