International marketing expert at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, prof. Nathaniel Boso is urging higher education institutions to prioritize research and innovation for sustainable development in Africa.

He believes it will be the driving force behind industrial growth.

“Higher education institutions are now expected to prioritize major groundbreaking research, innovation and entrepreneurship to sustain their relevance and legitimacy.

“Our research clearly shows that African businesses are ready to consume high quality research outputs to inform their decisions to take risk to pioneer new innovations,” he said.

Speaking at his professorial inaugural lecture, he however pointed out the research outputs should be at par with international standards.

“Africa’s position as the next frontier in international business and trade can only be boosted if the quality of research on African businesses and environment are perceived to be at the same standard as research from other parts of the world,” he said.

Prof. Boso is therefore calling for “national policy orientation across the continent that prioritizes, finances and rewards high quality research and evidence-based decision-making in business organization and public institutions”.

Prof. Boso again argued for the creation of a truly autonomous research-intensive universities to lead ground breaking African context research.

“Along this line, one could argue that the older and more prominent public universities  such as University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Nairobi for example could be remodeled to become research intensive universities with focus on producing high flying researchers and innovators,” he delineated.

Prof. Boso’s lecture was on the topic “International Business: Why care about Africa?”

The lecture further delved into efforts made over the years to advance Africa context research in different higher education institutions on the continent. These efforts include establishments of centres of excellence and research chairs to strengthen research capacity of African business and management researchers and students.

Finally, the lecture advanced several policy recommendations as a way of pushing forward the frontiers of quality of African context research including recommendation to prioritize research quality in higher education institutions and create truly autonomous research-intensive universities.