Calls to include research skills training in PhD curricula

Academics and researchers across Africa have made a renewed appeal to governments and universities to integrate the skills-based Pan-African Doctoral Academy (PADA) programme into PhD curricula, reports Ghana Business News.

PADA is a programme that helps African academics to develop skills for careers as researchers, teachers and doctoral students. It is an initiative pioneered by Emerita Professor Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu with support from the University of Ghana, which has trained more than 5,000 doctoral candidates and early-career scholars from Ghana, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Nigeria and Kenya since 2015.

The academics, from various African countries, cite its transformative impact on accelerating research output and fostering continental scholarship. They made the call during the closing ceremony of the February 2025 PADA Doctoral School of the University of Ghana.
Full report on the Ghana Business News site