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.

The President also announced at the launch of the Fund in Accra a GH¢100 million seed fund for 2026.

The President said 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 said 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 said 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 said 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 said this moment must also be understood within the broader history of Ghana’s development.

President Mahama said 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.

President Mahama said Ghana must not only consume knowledge, but also produce knowledge that is locally relevant.

He said President Nkrumah recognised that research could not be incidental to development, adding that it had to be deliberately organised as part of statecraft.

President Mahama said many decades later, President Professor John Evans Atta Mills reaffirmed the importance of science, technology, innovation, and research as a pillar of Ghana’s development agenda and championed stronger institutional support for research and knowledge generation.

“Indeed, the Ghana National Research Fund vision was a central dream of Professor John Evans Atta Mills. And on this day, we acknowledge him and remember him, that his vision has come to fruition,” the President said.

“So this vision has always been present. What has often been missing is the predictable, sustainable financing architecture needed to support that vision”

Adding that the architecture came in Act 1056 of 2020.

President Mahama acknowledged the previous administration of Nana Akufo-Addo for piloting it through Parliament and passing it into an Act 1056.

He said that in the 21st century, nations could no longer compete solely on the basis of natural resources, geographical advantage, or access to capital, and that they must compete on ideas, innovation, and the ability to transform knowledge into productivity, and productivity into prosperity for their people.

The President said the most successful economies in the world today are not necessarily those that are endowed with the greatest natural wealth.

Adding that they were the economies that had consistently invested in research, technology, innovation, and human capital development.

He said the Fund’s mission-based framework reflects a clear understanding that research investments must be directed towards the areas that are most critical to Ghana’s development.

“Ghanaian farmers and agriculturists are looking for research that will save them from the scourge of the army worm in maize production,” the President said.

“Ghanaian farmers, cocoa farmers, are looking to research that will develop species of cocoa that are resistant to the swollen shoot disease.”

President Mahama said the University Teachers Association (UTAG) will be happy to have the Ghana National Research Fund as a supplementary research fund in addition to their research and book allowances

President Mahama commended Professor Eric Yirenkye Danquah, the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Ghana National Research Fund, for spearheading the Fund's implementation.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Education, announced that the Ministry, in collaboration with the Finance Ministry, was taking steps to address UTAG's research and book allowance issue; hence, there was no need for them to embark on a strike.