The Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, Legon will continue to focus on its core activities in policy research and the effective dissemination of its advocacy programmes. The institute will, therefore, expand its core areas in research programmes, enhance organisational performance and improve dissemination and advocacy. Professor Ernest Aryeetey, Director of the Institute, speaking at the launch of the 40th anniversary of the institute at Legon yesterday, also announced the award of a grant of about $2million from the Think-tank Initiative from the Canada's International Development Research Centre. He said since the establishment of the institute, it had undertaken a good number of research programmes beneficial to the national economy and that, he said, had qualified them for the grant. The director mentioned some of the programmes as the cocoa project, research on poverty, the land tenure and policy reform project and the issue of structural adjustment. Prof. Aryeetey said all these research projects resulted in a series of publications. Giving the line-up of activities which would end in December this year, Prof. Aryeetey said in June, Minister Armim Laschet of the Ministry of Home Affairs, North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany would visit the institute and will launch the "Centre of Excellence in Development Studies Programme" the same month. In July, Prof. Aryeetey said, the institute would launch the "State of the Ghanaian Economy Report 2008" and review the economic performance for the first half of the year. There would also be a roundtable discussion on "Managing a new oil economy" and the launch of tile ISSER-FES Development seminar series, while in November the institute would hold an international conference on sustainable growth. On the $2 million grant, Prof. Aryeetey said the institute was one of the two Ghanaian institutions selected for the core grant and also one of the only two university-based recipient institutions. Prof. Aryeetey said part of the grant would go into the expansion of the institute's library, improve the-facilities in its computer room, conduct more policy research activities and undertake more publications. Currently, the institute is improving on its accommodation facilities with the construction of new conference and administrative offices to meet international standards. Prof. Clifford Boye Tagoe, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon said the factors that motivated the University of Ghana to equip ISSER 40 years ago to enable it 'pursue serious policy research were still relevant. He, therefore, called on the leadership of the institute to reinvigorate its activities since policy research had become even more sophisticated than it was 40 years ago. "Development policy-making in Ghana certainly requires new tools and sound analytical support", he said, and added that despite the recent expansion in the number of institutions doing policy research in Ghana, ISSER had remained the only one with a long-term research strategy and focused on both immediate needs of policy makers as well as the long-term needs of the people and their government. ISSER was created in 1969 after the transformation of an earlier Institute of Statistics that was set up by the UNDP in 1962 to train middle-level statisticians for the public sector. Since its inception, the institute had focused on research that is essential for developing appropriate economic and social development policies. With the huge brain-drain that hit the country in 1980s, ISSER researchers still managed to do considerable work on poverty as well as structural adjustment. This was also the period that saw ISSER launching its first annual "State of the Ghanaian Economy Report" in 1991. Source: Daily Graphic