UEW Staff Win Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Research Grant

A team of University of Education, Winneba (UEW) staff made up of Dr. Edmond A. Agyeman (Centre for African Studies/School of Business), Dr. Emmanuel M. Tamanja (IERIS) and Dr. Bernard B. B. Bingab (School of Business), have won a research grant worth US$30,000.00 from CODESRIA to conduct research on university governance and community relations in some selected public Universities in Ghana. The goal of the research is to examine the dimensions of relations that universities in Ghana develop with local communities; instances of friction or conflicts that generate between universities and their immediate communities; and the challenges and opportunities that these tensions pose for the future governance of public universities in Ghana.

The grant was secured under very stiff competition. In his letter to the grantees, Dr. Godwin Murunga, Executive Secretary of CODESRIA, wrote: “Kindly allow me to congratulate you on this achievement. We received 248 applications under the MRI competition and only chose 16 for support. Many of the applications were of a high quality and it is with great difficulty after a multi-layered evaluation process that CODESRIA decided on those to support”.

It is, therefore, the hope of the researchers that findings from this study will provide deeper scientific insight into university-community relations and enrich the discourse on ways in which universities can deliver on their social contract and on the responsibility they owe to the communities where they are located.