Heritors Labs, Ghana – Expanding Accessibility of Research and Innovation Support Programmes
About Heritors Labs Limited, Ghana
Heritors Labs Limited is a Ghanaian-owned innovation services hub and research centre working to scale research and development, and crystallise the role of research and innovation in national development.
How the RISA Fund Grant was Used
The main objective of the RISA grant was to provide technical capacity, frameworks, tools, and linkages to the established Programmes Coordinating Office (PCO), to deepen access to research ecosystem support programmes and networks to Ghana Innovation and Research Centre (GIRC). GIRC was established by the Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovations (MESTI), to support the transformation of research output and innovations into industrial products and services.
A memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed with MESTI to ensure a longterm coordinating function for the newly established GIRC.
Through the RISA Fund, a stakeholder-owned private organisation, the Ghana Research Innovation Support Programmes Coordinating Office (GRISPCO) was formed to empower key players to access information on existing support programmes.
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) were developed to guide the operational activities of GRISPCO. Several institutions have adopted the SOPs for their operations including the University of Environment and Sustainable Development in Ghana.
Top Findings and Achievements
- An information portal intergrating a work stream platform was created, to enable personnel from research and innovation support programmes to run operational activities.
- An active website repository was created to support institutions exploring research commercialisation such as GIRC at https://grispco.org/
- A gender mainstreaming policy for GRISPCO to promote gender equity was finalised.
- Innovation partnerships were encouraged through an industry-academia collaboration framework.
Recommendations and Next Steps
- Continued collaboration with institutions and organisations specialising in funding and providing support with an unparalleled focus on research and commercialisation.
- Development of a research database consisting of around one-hundred works; hosted through the web stream platform built as part of the programme.
- More than one-hundred researchers are anticipated to benefit from activities conducted within a period of three months as a result of the MOU.