Research institutes of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) have been given an 18-month ultimatum to go commercial.

Mr. Abe Incoom, Chairman of the Council said they needed to act quickly to re-package their services and products to generate adequate funds to finance their operations to avoid imminent collapse.

He warned that many of them could be forced to fold up within the next five years because of the increasing difficulty with government’s funding.

He expressed optimism about their huge potential to become financially self-sufficient and wean themselves off government subvention.

Mr. Incoom was interacting with the management and staff of the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG) as part of his tour of the CSIR institutions in Kumasi.

He said it was important for each of the Council’s 13 institutes to identify at least one flagship project, develop efficient production and marketing strategies to make it attractive to the people.

“The staff would have to change their mindset and create money out of their research work to fund their operations.”

He said the Council would give every needed support to any initiative that could help them to achieve financial independence.

He reminded them that they could not continue to do things the way they had been doing it over the years :”this must have to necessarily change to keep us in operation.”

Dr. Victor Agyeman, Director of FORIG, said the staff and management were determined to work to bring in more revenue to sustain the institute.