Government is set to establish an innovation centre to collate the findings conducted by scientists and researchers in the country.

The facility, to be known as the Ghana Innovation and Research Commercialisation Centre (GIRC-Centre), according to thethe Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng would also facilitate the translation of research findings and other innovations into products and service for commercialisation.

Hedisclosed this at a consultative forum to discuss fundamental issues and challenges for effective linkages between research-academia and industry.

The meeting, which brought together researchers and scientists from various institutions, deliberated on the national innovation system of Ghana in relation to technology transfer and commercialisation of research outputs.

For now, the Ghana Climate Innovation Centre, a pioneering business incubator with focus on developing small and medium scale enterprises ventures in the green economy, is funding the stakeholder meeting to fully develop and perfect the concept.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the GRC-Centre was one of the strategic interventions among others at the heart of the new National Science Technology and Innovation Policy being reviewed by the Government. 

In addition, it would promote partnership between government, public research institutions, industries, academia and the private sector to ensure that the collaborations led to enhanced productivity.

He explained that the centre was crucial to the development of the country and the Government was poised to transforming the innovation system by providing enabling environment for it to thrive.

Through the Centre, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the Government would seek to satisfy the demands of industry and encourage researchers and graduates to participate in incubation programmes to establish spin-off knowledge-based companies.

The country’s prosperity, he noted, depended on her capabilities at the microeconomic level, the ability of firms, large and small, to produce goods and services productively and competitively.

“Our national innovation system faces a lot of challenges including fragmented science technology and innovation institutions, poor coordination of research and development activities and poor linkages between research and industry,” he said.

Dr Erick Twum, the Policy Fellow at Ghana Climate Innovation Centre (GCIC), said the GCIC would support the GIRC-Centre legally to acquire intellectual property for the various inventions and ideas that would be conceived.  

“Many people have brilliant ideas and we don’t want people to steal it. It may be one dollar of an investment today but in the near future these innovations will be worth millions so we will protect these novelties,” he said.

In addition, Mr Twum said the GCIC would provide support towards the establishment of the centre after the stakeholder consultation completed the costing component.