Welcome to GREN2025 Conference
Date 15-16 April from 9:00 am (GMT+0)
at ISSER Conference hall, University of Ghana
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Theme
From Environmental Disruptions to Sustainability:
The Role of Research Ethics in Shaping Africa’s Sustainable Future
Announcements
The conference is happening at the ISSER Conference Hall on the University of Ghana campus. Use the link below to find the location on Google Maps.
Conveners
Professor Amos Laar is a distinguished academic and researcher in public health nutrition and bioethics, and currently the Head of the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at the University of Ghana School of Public Health. He is also the Co-Principal Investigator on Phase 2 of the NYU-UG Research Integrity Training Program (RITP), currently being implemented at the University of Ghana.
Professor Arthur L. Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University (NYU) Grossman School of Medicine. Professor Caplan served on several high-level advisory bodies, including the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, the Wellcome Trust Advisory Panel on Research in Humanitarian Crises, and as Co-Director of the Joint Council of Europe/United Nations Study on Trafficking in Organs and Body Parts. Professor Caplan is also a Co-Principal Investigators on Phase 2 of NYU-UG Research Integrity Training Program (RITP).
Professor Gbenga Ogedegbe is a distinguished physician and researcher in health disparities and cardiovascular diseases. He is the inaugural and founding Director of the Institute for Excellence in Health Equity at NYU Langone Health. Professor Ogedegbe is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), and a fellow of several scientific organisations, including the American Heart Association, the American College of Physicians, and the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research. Professor Ogedegbe is also a Co-Principal Investigator on Phase 2 of the NYU-UG Research Integrity Training Program (RITP).
GREN2025 Chair
Dr. Samuel Asiedu Owusu is a Senior Research Fellow and Bioethicist at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He specializes in bioethics, child health, mHealth, and transport. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed papers, 25 technical reports, and 3 policy documents. Dr. Owusu holds a PhD in Population and Health, a Master’s in Bioethics, and a Certificate in Research Integrity. He has attended 90+ conferences and has held leadership roles, including UCCIRB administrator and GHAAREC member. Notably, he was the first NYU-UG Research Integrity Fellow to complete the Master’s in Bioethics.
Speakers
Dr. Fortunate Machingura is the the chairperson of the 1st Climate and Health Africa Conference. Dr. Machingura’s work focuses on fostering connections between academic and policy interests at the intersection of climate and health in Africa. She is a social anthropologist with an interest in climate, health, and policy and a lecturer in the Department of International Public Health at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Dr. Machingura also leads the Climate, Environment, and Health Department at the Centre for Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS Research (CeSHHAR) in Zimbabwe.
Dr. Stephen Morgan is a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ghana. He has academic training in Applied Ethics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of Ghana. Dr. Morgan teaches various programme levels, including undergraduate and postgraduate courses in philosophy and applied ethics at the University of Ghana. His research interests include Animal and Environmental Ethics, as well as African philosophy and ethics. He is currently working on understanding the socio-cultural and legal hindrances preventing Ghana from attaining sound animal welfare practices or recognising animal rights.
Professor Nana Ama Browne Klutse is a distinguished Physicist and Climate Scientist, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Authority of Ghana, a position she has held since January 2025, following her appointment by the President of Ghana. Before this role, she was the Head of the Department of Physics at the University of Ghana from August 2023 to January 2025, making her the first female to become a Head of the Department. She also holds an international leadership position as Vice-Chair of Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Dr. Wisdom Atiwoto is the Director of Research, Statistics, and Information Management at the Ministry of Health, Ghana. He leads the digital transformation of Ghana’s health sector and promotes data-driven decision-making. He is also responsible for establishing the national research agenda to improve health outcomes. His work contributes to strengthening the health system, the statistical infrastructure, and the national health information systems. Dr. Atiwoto is particularly interested in initiatives such as telehealth, electronic health records, and big data, all aimed at improving patient health outcomes.
Mr. Harruna Zaid is a member of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – Water Research Institute (CSIR-WRI) in Ghana. He has training in bioethics from the Master in Bioethics programme at the University of Ghana and is currently the President of the Ghana Association of Administrators of Research Ethics Committees.
Awula Serwah is the founder and coordinator of Eco-Conscious Citizens, a civil society organisation dedicated to raising awareness about environmental issues in Ghana and promoting sustainable practices among Ghanaians. Initiatives led by the NGO include tree planting and engaging youth organisations in environmental projects. In 2003, Ms. Serwah was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and in 2007, she received the Brent Citizenship Award for her contributions to environmental advocacy.
Dr. Afdolf Awua is a multidisciplinary-trained scientist and Principal Research Scientist at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission. He has a strong record of working in the research sector in Ghana and beyond, with expertise in statistical data analysis, epidemiology, biomedical sciences, and bioethics. His academic training includes a focus on Public Health (Epidemiology) from the University of Ghana. Dr. Awua is also an advocate for the role of nuclear technology in advancing Ghana’s “Beyond Aid” agenda.
Professor Kyle Ferguson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY). His academic work focuses on ethics, bioethics, and environmental ethics. His current projects explore vaccine ethics, global health ethics, and research ethics in the contexts of public health emergencies and climate change mitigation strategies.
Professor Veronica Njie-Carr is an academic nurse researcher and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing in Baltimore, USA. She brings 37 years of nursing practice experience, including service in The Gambia. Her academic career spans 26 years across universities and colleges in the Baltimore–Washington area, including Howard University and Johns Hopkins University. She is also the Principal Investigator of the GamREMTI initiative in The Gambia.
Dr. Samuel Asiedu Owusu is a Senior Research Fellow and Bioethicist at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. He specializes in bioethics, child health, mHealth, and transport. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed papers, 25 technical reports, and 3 policy documents. Dr. Owusu holds a PhD in Population and Health, a Master’s in Bioethics, and a Certificate in Research Integrity. He has attended 90+ conferences and has held leadership roles, including UCCIRB administrator and GHAAREC member. Notably, he was the first NYU-UG Research Integrity Fellow to complete the Master’s in Bioethics.
Faciliitors and Moderators
Professor James Abugri is an Associate Professor and the Dean of the School of Chemical and Biochemical Sciences at C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) in Navrongo, Ghana. He also serves as the Team Leader of the University’s COVID-19 Technical Management Team. Prof. Abugri’s research interests include malaria immunology, HIV, and the application of biochemical and chemical techniques in microbiology and molecular biotechnology. His work has expanded to cover genomics and bioinformatics applications for in silico drug discovery aimed at innovative translational drug design. He is a member of the Ghana Science Association and the Immunology Society of Ghana.
Professor James Akazili is the Dean of the School of Public Health at C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS) in Navrongo, Ghana, and formerly served as Deputy Director of the Ghana Health Service. His research interests include health care financing, equity and efficiency in health care systems, universal health coverage (UHC), and the economic evaluation of health programmes.
Professor Paulina Tindana is an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Global Health in the Department of Health Policy, Planning and Management at the University of Ghana School of Public Health, University of Ghana. Her research and teaching focus on the ethical, socio-cultural, and policy implications of biomedical research and public health systems, including genetics and genomics. As Principal Investigator, she leads the Genomics Epidemiology for Malaria Elimination Policy Engagement Project, funded by the Gates Foundation, and the H3Africa Community Engagement in Genomics and Biobanking (CEBioGen) project, supported by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). Additionally, she is the Lead for the Global Health Bioethics Network in Ghana and has served on various national and international bioethics committees.
Kwame Adjei is a PhD student and faculty member of the Bioethics department, University of Ghana. He is a fellow of the NYU-UG Research Integrity program and also has over fifteen years of research experience working with the Ghana Health Service (GHS). He recently founded the Centre for Global Health and Bioethics Research, a consultancy firm which aims to conduct bioethics-relevant research in Ghana.
Meet the network
Birth through the New York University–University of Ghana Research Integrity Training Program (NYU-UG RITP) with the support of the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health (FIC, NIH), the Ghana Research Ethics Network (GREN) Conference is an annual event convened each year by the project partner. The conference seeks to gather project partners around heated contemporary topics.
GREN hosted two previous sessions in 2022 and 2023. During these last years, GREN engaged over 170 attendees collectively, including members from academia, faculty, fellows, the Ministry of Health of Ghana, its health regulatory authorities, the Ghana Association of Administrators of Research Ethics Committees, and graduate students from around 30 different disciplines.
Previous GREN conferences included discussions spanning topics such as ethical funding, enhancing the capacity of institutional review boards, conflicts of interest in public health nutrition, research misconduct, ethical international research collaborations, biobanking, and genomic data, preparedness for disease outbreaks, autonomy in bioethics, the ethics of nudging in organ donation, surrogacy, and AI and research ethics.
GREN2025 is focusing on environmental disruptions and sustainability in Africa. The theme is motivated by the fact that Africa faces environmental challenges despite contributing significantly less to the factors leading to the issues, yet the continent bears a disproportionate burden of climate impacts and has expected responsibilities in the solutions. Therefore, members of GREN consider it timely to convene a reflection on the future of Africa amidst current environmental disruptions by leveraging research ethics for a sustainable future on the continent.
Previous GRENs in images
The Organizing Team
Dr. Samuel Asiedu Owusu (Chair)
Prof. Amos Laar
Prof. Obeng George Adjei
Prof. Paulina Tindana
Rev. Prof. Andrews Seth Ayettey
Prof. Kyle Ferguson
Prof. James Abugri
Ms. Selina Mantebea Tobil
Mr. Ibrahim Baki
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