President John Dramani Mahama has unveiled the Ghana National Research Fund as part of efforts to accelerate Ghana’s journey towards becoming a knowledge-driven, innovation-led and
The report indicates that president John Mahama has unveiled the Ghana National Research Fund as part of efforts to accelerate Ghana’s journey towards becoming a knowledge-driven, innovation-led and globally competitive economy.
It further notes that the President also announced at the launch of the Fund in Accra a GH¢100 million seed fund for 2026.
The President stated the initial investment of GH¢100 million would support competitive national research grants, doctoral and postdoctoral research programmes, digital grants management systems, strategic innovation initiatives, and priority research programmes aligned with national development objectives.
This allocation, he reiterated, reflects the government’s commitment to building a sustainable and credible national research finance ecosystem.
He stated in addition, the government would ensure the full, and timely implementation of the provisions of Act 1056 on the mobilisation and release of resources for research funding.
He charged the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the GETFund and the Fund Governing Board to ensure the transparent, accountable and resource-orientated deployments of these resources.
The President stated by operationalising the Fund, Ghana was making a deliberate policy choice to place research, innovation, and knowledge generation at the heart of our development agenda.
“We got together not merely to launch a fund. We have to make a national declaration that knowledge, science, and innovation matter and that Ghana is prepared to invest in all three strategic things as instruments of national transformation,” President Mahama stated.
He added, “This is not simply the inauguration of another statutory institution. It establishes a national framework for financing knowledge creation, strengthening scientific capability, and aligning research more closely with our national development priorities.
The President stated today that Ghana affirms that research can no longer be treated as a peripheral activity, adding that it could become one of the engines driving the nation’s economic growth, social progress, and national competitiveness.
He stated this moment must also be understood within the broader history of Ghana’s development.
President Mahama stated from the earliest years of the nation’s independence, the founding President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, recognised that science, technology, and research would be indispensable to economic transformation and national self-reliance.
He noted that Dr Nkrumah understood that a nation seeking to industrialise could not indefinitely rely on important knowledge and solutions and that Ghana had to build the capacity to generate its own ideas, develop its own technologies, and solve its own local challenges.
He reiterated that Dr Nkrumah’s vision was simple yet profound.
