Revitalise what? The first time I heard about the National Research Council (NRC) in Ghana was when I read a short epilogue of a text thoughtfully written by a distinguished Ghanaian scientist, Dr Letitia Eva Obeng. According to Dr Obeng, she was the ‘first research staff appointed by the National Research Council of Ghana to its Biological Research Institute’ in 1960. As I deduced from Dr Obeng’s message, the institutional effort to harmonise national research agenda in the 20th century resulted in the establishment of the NRC, which later seemingly disappeared or was realigned. To date very little documented information is publicly known about the NRC, and its impact on advanced research is unfolding. This textpiece highlights an emerging opinion that if the NRC is revitalised and resourced, the potential to generate, coordinate and utilise time-tested data to enrich good plans, decisions and sustainable policy choices are never doubtful. The promise and premise to deliberately move research from disorganised state to a more collaborative sustainability research through the NRC come up in the text.
          Vast research gaps to fill: The significance of research in discovering new remedies and explicit understanding of how to resolve development issues is well-known among policymakers, scientists, activists, governments, and media practitioners. What is perplexing is the reason why financial investment is continually squeezed from research and research-led institutions. The reasons to improve unappealing research culture and to increase funding for research in central government budgets are gaining wider popularity and acceptance, especially in higher educations and think tanks. For some sectors where research structures appear to be in good standing, the research practices happening on the field tend to be inclined to “privileged” disciplines and classified cohorts. In the situation where research system is relatively functioning, public policy which supposed to connect research findings to industry or society is inactive or disjointed, manifesting big research gaps yet to be filled. The works of the late Prof. Alexander Kwapong[1] (Former Vice-Rector of the United Nations University) and Manuh and colleagues are still useful to mention. Prof Kwapong acknowledged the ‘existence of parallel systems of high education and national research, which are not effectively coordinated or integrated into overall national educational and research programs’. From Prof Kwapong’s experience, ‘effective interface’ between research, industry and education, and especially ‘agriculture, industry and commerce’ was lacked. Even now, there are substantial data inaccuracies or assumptions concerning industrialisation, “galamsay”, food security, energy, human security, and climate sciences as well as technological fields of responsible digitisation, mobile telecomputing and the so-called AI. The loophole in researched data pertaining to outdoor and indoor air pollution and coastal degradation was echoed by Aryeetey and Dzandu[2]. On the journey to promote nature conservation and combat climate extremes, missing data had diluted the stamina and involuntarily caused several go-slows. The scientific data from within, that is readily available and can help to fathom complex scenarios, solutions and progresses of development, is hardly more than 35% for some disciplines and others 15%. Nobody has shown up to confidently refute the idea of data deficiencies and inadequacies. The coordination of research or research-oriented institutions remains inefficient thereby presenting a major setback for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Researched facts are important not only in benchmarking SDG progress but also in building grand policy systems to deliver real-life solutions that can be fairly distributed and inclusively measured. Is the issue of ‘research and book allowance’, which ignited intellectual debates in data-mining universities sometime past, completely resolved? Can NRC light this kind of debate?
          Investing in data for INDCs and SDGs: Accurate on-the-ground data is a “green” engine that fast-drives decision support processes interlinking all the 17 SDGs. There is going to be no pretending or saying sustainability has occurred or SDGs are achieved in 2030 and beyond, without utilising scientifically researched data from bottom-up to build and clean decision-making processes. The only way to avoid pretense is to sufficiently invest in collaborative research to produce usable data. Quality data concerning the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) is necessary to ontologically comprehend new development pathways and how data can be fed into calculating and measuring large-scale advances toward the SDGs. The mantra of ‘Leave No One Behind’ will be a mirage if all-embracing research leadership expected from the NRC is ignored.
           Facilitating institutional capital: Before 1960s, infrastructure and trained human resource capital were arguably underdeveloped to enable NRC and other institutions to tackle research challenges head-on. Along a national development timeline, the imposition of a cluster of economic recovery policies such as the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) became detrimental to functional operations of institutions in the research sector. The SAP had eroded ‘basic research funds for universities’ to create a condition where ‘consultancies took place of research’ as narrated by Manuh and colleagues in “Change and transformation in Ghana’s publicly funded universities”. Making reference to economic recovery policy is not to suggest SAP alone accounted for inadequate funding of research. Putting this aside, it is strongly believed that, at present, the educational, political, legal and university facilities are reasonably conducive from which the NRC can draw strengths and finances to formulate partnerships and successfully coordinate different research services and institutions than 5-6 decades ago. Some of these institutions are National Development Planning Commission, Bank of Ghana, GNPC, VRA, ISSER, Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, and CSIR’s subsidiary institutes like SARI, ARI, FRI, WRI and FORIG. The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS), Institute of Economic Affairs as well as public and private universities are relevant institutions whose capital can be harnessed, negotiated and streamlined to push forward national research agendas. The foresight of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana led to an Interfaith Research Centre, which is today commendable.
         What is NRC to do differently?: The NRC has to be transformed into an autonomous entity and financially empowered to (i) set up, monitor and enable best research ethics, qualities and policies; (ii) promote research innovativeness, shared knowledge values and ingenuity alongside 21st century research skills; (iii) assess and authenticate researcher credibility in the communication, interpretation and publication of research findings to cooperate within wider professional research codes; and (iv) design research grant-generating initiatives to stimulate curiosity of citizens (including early research career professionals) in STEM and non-STEM research activities and knowledge (re)production from time to time.
          Lightening sustainability research: If the ultimate goal is to upgrade, accelerate and sustain living standards in all aspects of micro- and macrodevelopment, then vital institutions like the NRC, which can unravel 85% of decision-making and planning tools to aid realisation of the INDCs and SDGs, demand an urgent policy action. The SDGs require research and future research needs NRC. The power of the NRC been overlooked for far too long and represents a dangerous pitfall for development management on the grounds of science, equality and sustainability. Even if the NRC is enveloped by another institution, the expanding nature of scientific research and the changing patterns of problems confronting society support revitalisation and prioritisation of the NRC. Certainly, revitalising the NRC is a difficult one. But collective action is needed to get it alive and running soonest. This means research-led universities, GAAS, non-governmental organisations, civil societies and think tanks ought to leverage mandates, resources and take on civic responsibility to rebuild the NRC to become a key frontier and contributor to sustainable transformation of society, economy and natural environment. Everyone consumes researched data directly or indirectly, and therefore is invited to join positive forces to revive the NRC (or its equivalent institution, which may take the form of Foundation, Commission or Authority) in the future interest of all.

[1] Kwapong, A. A., 1990. The challenges of education. In: O. Olusegun, and H. O’rville (eds.) Challenges of leadership in African development. Taylor and Francis: New York, pp 135-152.
[2] Aryeetey, E. and Dzanku F., 2008. Using natural resources for future growth and enhanced livelihoods. New Leg Obs 2 (8): 5-8.