Professor Harrison Kwame Dapaah, the Vice-Chancellor of UENR and Prof Oleg Dolmatov, the Director of Engineering, School of Nuclear Technology- TPU, signed for their respective institutions at a short but impressive ceremony at the UENR campus in Sunyani.

In a broader sense, it is a cross university collaboration towards the development of a critical mass of knowledge in various areas including Education, Training and Research in Nuclear Science, Technology and Engineering at the UENR.

Besides UENR, the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) are other Ghanaian institutions in the collaboration.

Prof Dapaah lauded the timeliness of the cooperation adding that there is the need for the University to develop all sources of energy for the development of the country.

He said one critical source in terms of development is that of nuclear energy which could be used in diverse areas such as power generation, agriculture and health.

The VC said the collaboration was designed to among others to educate and train Ghanaians, especially the University's under-graduate and post-graduate students to become experts in nuclear energy production, so that Ghana would not have to depend on other countries for energy.

Prof Dapaah said there is a commitment as a government policy to develop nuclear power to engineer holistic national development and expressed the hope that through the collaboration the Ghanaian capacity in nuclear science and technology would be built.

Prof Dolmatov, the leader of a three-member Russian delegation for the ceremony, said the collaboration would have a far-reaching positive impact since it was not only essential for energy development but a wide range of sectors including medicine.

Other members of the Russian delegation were Dr Vera Verhoturova, Director of Master's Degree programme for Nuclear Science and Technology, TPU; and Dr Pavel V. Zhuravlev, Vice-Rector and Director of the International Business Development Department, Rosatom Technical Academy, Russia; as well as Dr Vincent Agbodemegde, a Ghanaian Senior Research Scientist at the GAEC.