Researchers urged to use the media in publishing their findings

Ghanaian researchers have been urged to engage the media in publishing their findings so as to achieve their study objectives and effect the needed changes in society with their work.

According to Mrs Karrine Sanders, a team member of the Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DUSSA) implementation delegation, “Researchers should tell their story and need not hold on their findings.”

She stated that since academics did not have the time to write policy briefs, engaging communications experts to handle that aspect of their research was apt. Mrs Sanders added that “when research is communicated it can no longer be shelved”.

Ms Diana Coates and Richard Middleton, who are part of the three member DRUSSA delegation to the country, supported the idea of researchers engaging the media to help them publish their findings, saying it was the right way to make the needed impact.

The implementation team was in the country to engage senior university management and some 24 members of the university community selected to spearhead the DRUSSA agenda.

Under the DRUSSA programme, 24 universities from some African countries are will helped to strengthen research uptake management capacity and participation in the international development scientific research system.

The countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa.

The DRUSSA seminar was to provide solutions at individual, institutional and systems levels in order to achieve overall viability and impact in terms of improved participation and policy and practice impact.

Through the introduction of Research Uptake Management, a new specialist university management field, DRUSSA will focus on strengthening the capacity of these universities to engage with their national stakeholders.

The objective is for universities to fulfill their unique role as primary knowledge producers and key intermediary contributors to the major developmental poverty-reduction programmes in their countries and the Sub-Saharan African region.

DRUSSA is partnering the Centre for Research into Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at the University of Stellenbosch and Organisation Systems Design (OSD), a South African based consultancy specializing in facilitating change in the research management and capacity-building sectors in Africa; and the UK-based Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

It is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The DRUSSA programme commenced on 1st October, 2011 and will roll-out over a 5-year period.