The 1st Ghana Science Congress hosted by the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST), Government of Ghana, was held 2 – 5 August 2011 with the theme: “Water, Sanitation and Environment, Securing our Future through Science”. Presiding at the climax of the Congress, Ghana’s Vice President John Dramani Mahama awarded a number of personalities and corporate organizations for their immense contribution towards the development of science in Ghana.
Among the awardees was Mr. Micheal Kwabena Osei, an employee of Crops Research Institute (CRI) based in Kumasi, Ghana, who graduated last year from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology with an MSc in Plant Breeding sponsored by FARA under its collaborative program on Strengthening Capacity for Agricultural Research and Development in Africa (SCARDA). Mr. Osei, the 2nd runner up and bronze medalist in the Young Scientist award category, took home a laptop and GH¢5,000 (approximately US$ 3,230).
As one of our ‘change agents’ at CRI, we heartily congratulate Mr. Osei for this outstanding recognition and hope that he will build on this impetus to hasten realization of the long-term goals of SCARDA i.e. “to substantially and sustainably enhance the NARS contribution to poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa”. We also hope that this will inspire the other SCARDA graduates in other parts of Africa to give their best in this regard. A citation on this award is attached. Photos of the beaming medalist can also be viewed here:https://skydrive.live.com/
2 Comments
We shouldn’t lose sight of the point that peer iervew doesn’t stop at publication. Papers continue to be criticised or praised (and occasionally even cited ) after they are published. I think we should take a longer-term view of the process. Journal peer iervew is just a filtering process that attempts to ensure some minimum standard prior to publication, though its success in that is obviously debatable. Publication in peer-reviewed journals only implies that some peer iervew has been done, not that it has necessarily been done well, or that the conclusions or work are correct. I’m sure we’ve all seen a number of godawful papers in very high-ranking journals, and great papers in lower-ranked journals, and could bore each other stiff with the anecdotes.I’m OK with incorrect or unsound work being rejected, but in general I’d prefer that borderline work was published for community appraisal, rather than consigned to the bin. IMO it’s the community, in citation, repetition and use of the work, that is the real peer iervew process.
@filmjunkie998 I did look up Descartes, I try to be a bit informed broefe making these replies. I learned about Bertrand Russell in the process, so thanks there? xD Any way, I still find flaws in the reasoning. I agree to an extent that science and living are often one and the same. There are still exceptions, humans, like all animals, have natural instincts. Superstition also comes to mind. So I suppose that is why there are terms for both.