Helping Researchers Succeed

A two-day training workshop was organized by the Office of Grants and Research on the 30th and 31st of July 2014 on pre-award research grant processes. Participants for the workshop were research administrators and accounts staff from all six colleges of the University. A total of 13 accounts staff and 24 research administrators were present.

Facilitators for the training were; Ms. Nadia Tagoe (Grants Manager, OGR), Mrs. Florence Aboh (Research Administrator), Mr. Ebenezer Appiah-Kubi (Deputy Finance Officer, KNUST) and Mr. Emmanuel Ebo Ocran (Systems Analyst, KNUST)

Also in attendance was the director of OGR, Prof. Peter Donkor who gave the opening and closing remarks. During the opening, he indicated that the purpose of the training was to build capacity of Research Administrators and Research Accounting Staff to improve their performance in grant administration for the growth of the university’s research enterprise.

Ms. Tagoe made a presentation on who research administrators are and the role they play in proposal preparation. According to her presentation, a research administrator is one who renders research support to the researcher and work in diverse ways to help researchers succeed. They should therefore possess many qualities including being hard working, experienced and persistent. She took participants through the various ways to give support to researchers during proposal development. She also educated participants on cost principles to apply when budgeting, charging grants and reporting. Mrs. Aboh, on the other hand enlightened participants on the identification, dissection and dissemination of funding opportunity announcements.

On the second day, Mr. Ocran threw light on budget preparation in the context of project management. He emphasized the stages in the budgeting process and the various categories to consider when budgeting. He advised that coordination and review by all team members was very necessary to arrive at the final budget.

Mr. Appiah-Kubi’s presentation focused on budget justification which he defined as a narrative that explains each of the components of the budget and justifies the cost in terms of the proposed work. He stressed that the justification of the budget should focus on how each item is required to achieve the aims of the project and how the estimated costs were calculated. The justification helps clear all doubts from the minds of sponsors and reviewers

In addition, participants participated in hands-on activities. These practical sessions were very interactive and accorded the participants the opportunity to put to practice the theories they had learnt.