Researchers have been urged to engage the media in publishing their findings so as to achieve their study objectives and effect the needed change.

“Researchers should tell their story and need not hold on to their findings,” Mrs Karrine Sanders, a team member of the Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa (DUSSA) implementation delegation, said on Tuesday.

She said since academics did not have the time to write policy briefs, engaging communication experts to handle that aspect of their research was apt, adding that: “when research is communicated, it can no longer be shelved”.

Ms Diana Coates and Richard Middleton, who are part of the three member DRUSSA delegation to the country, supported the idea of researchers engaging the media to help them publish their findings, saying it was the right way to make the needed impact.

The implementation team was in the country to engage senior university management and some 24 members of the university community selected to spearhead the DRUSSA agenda.

Under the DRUSSA programme, 24 universities from some African countries are being helped to strengthen research uptake management capacity and participation in the international development scientific research system.

The countries include Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa.

The DRUSSA seminar was to provide solutions at individual, institutional and systems levels in order to achieve overall viability and impact in terms of improved participation and policy and practice impact.

Through the introduction of Research Uptake Management, a new specialist university management field, DRUSSA will focus on strengthening these universities' capacity to engage with their national stakeholders

The objective is for universities to fulfill their unique role as primary knowledge producers and key intermediary contributors to the major developmental poverty-reduction programs in their countries and the Sub-Sahara African region.

DRUSSA is partnering the Centre for Research into Evaluation, Science and Technology (CREST) at the University of Stellenbosch and Organisation Systems Design (OSD), a South African based consultancy specializing in facilitating change in the research management and capacity-building sectors in Africa; and the UK-based Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

It is funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The DRUSSA programme commenced on 1st October, 2011 and will roll-out over a 5-year period.

Prof. John Gyapong, Pro Vice Chancellor of ORID, charged researchers to ensure that their research results went beyond publication to impacting on society.

He also urged them to make use of research development officers at their disposal, whose duties include supporting and facilitating basic things in research.

He explained that the rank of research development officers were equivalent to assistant registrar, employed to assist researchers.

He said even though publishing research findings locally was appropriate, publishing in foreign journals was also essential and should not be downplayed.

Prof. Chris Gordon, Director for the Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies, said the university’s funding was very limited and called for another programme to help researchers tackle the communication aspect of research.

This, he said, was crucial in that some policies might seem evidence based, but be based on political expediency, adding that helping researchers in that direction was very apt.