Eric Danquah
Lecture: "Transforming Agriculture in Africa through Modernizing Higher Education: a University of Ghana Story"
About the speaker
Eric Yirenkyi Danquah is a professor of plant genetics in the Department of Crop Science at the College of Basic and Applied Sciences, University of Ghana. His research focus is on genetic diversity in crop plants and associated pests and how diversity relates to performance. Currently, he serves as director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), established at the University in 2007 as a result of his shared vision and leadership to train a new generation of plant breeders to develop improved varieties of the staple crops of West and Central Africa. He also serves as director of the Biotechnology Centre, University of Ghana.
His WACCI project has enrolled 128 PhD students in Plant Breeding from 19 African counties over a decade and graduated 66 students who are leading plant breeding programs in National Agricultural Research Institutions in Africa. He has also introduced a new Masters program in Seed Science and Technology, which has attracted 49 students in four years. Under his leadership, WACCI has released three improved maize hybrids for commercialization in Ghana.
Danquah has a passion for and a commitment to appropriate organizational functioning and the use of science for development and has mentored many young academics. He also has a flair for farming and has engaged farmers over many decades in best practices. He serves on the Advisory Board to the Federation of Young Farmers, Ghana, and is the Chairman of the Advisory and Oversight Board of the Samira Empowerment and Humanitarian Projects, Ghana.
He has consulted for the Science Council of the Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the USAID and participated in more than 130 international meetings in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the United Kingdom and the United States.
He received the University of Ghana Distinguished Award for Meritorious Service in 2013 and was a 2018 Laureate, Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agriculture and Life Science (GCHERA) World Agriculture Prize. He is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth and Cambridge Philosophical Societies. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for African Leadership Investment and Development, Leipzig, Germany; a member of Technical Advisory Committee for the Bill and Melinda Gates-funded AfricaYam Project based at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria; and a member of the Advisory and Management Board of the African Centre for Crop Improvement, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Danquah has attracted more than $30 million to the University of Ghana as a principal investigator for research and development projects, including $13.5 million from World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) and ACE Impact Projects and a competitive research grant of $1 million from the African Union Commission for research on food and nutrition security in some selected crops. He was instrumental in securing funding for the University of Ghana Water Augmentation Programme in the mid-2000s. He has authored 105 refereed journal articles, four books, a book chapter and more than 40 other publications.
He holds a bachelor of science degree in Agriculture (Crop Science) from the University of Ghana, a master’s degree in Plant Breeding and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Cambridge, UK.