Moving IMPACT activities and Women in Engineering event in Ghana

In late February 2026 most of the Moving IMPACT team travelled to Ghana to be hosted by project partners the University of Environment and Natural Resources (UENR) to take part in a two week long jam packed itinerary of meetings, workshops, field visits and much more.

The trip started with a visit to Ghana’s second most important university KUNST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) based in the city of Kumasi, where the team took part in the audience for the official book launch of ‘Professional Education for Renewable Energy in Ghana – ProREG’. This event gave the Moving IMPACT team the opportunity to meet and knowledge share with the international team of the ProREG project. The book focuses on capacity building in the Sub-Saharan African context which is also a focus of our research.

The trip continued with a day long visit to the rural areas of Bechem, and further meetings with the project team in Sunyani. A full write up on this can be found here: Project team visits rural health facilities in ghana

Moving Impact Team and the local community at the Municipal Assembly, Bechem

Women in Engineering Ghana Edition

On Thursday 26^th February, as part of the project objectives, we facilitated a Women in Engineering event at UENR in the Regional Centre for Energy and Environmental Sustainability (RECEES) building. This event welcomed three inspirational local women working in STEM lng Lydia Kyeraa, lng Dr Mary Antwi, and Ing.Dr Mrs Jacqueline Adongo, as well as two of our own women researchers from Italy, Dr Chiara Candelise and South Africa, Dr Whitney Pailman, Ph.D.

The international views and opinions of life as a woman in this male dominated sector was received enthusiastically by more an audience of nearly 100 students, comprising of both women and men.

Speakers at the Women in Engineering event

The take home messages included but not limited to: Follow your passion, do everything to the best of your ability, take every opportunity, but don’t be afraid to say no and speak up, and be your authentic self!

A full recording of the event can be viewed here…

Audience from the Women in Engineering event, UENR, Sunyani

Moving to Accra

For the second half of the trip the project team moved to Accra where the team met with many local stakeholders, from local businesses to universities. On Monday 2^nd March WP4 held a full one day workshop about e-mobility in Ghana that would inform their research direction going forward.

e-mobility workshop, Accra

Additional funding

This trip and in particular the two main events, Women in Engineering and the e-mobility workshop, were supported by the Imperial Global Development Lab ODA Project Accelerator. UK ODA funding is governed by the International Development Act 2002, and the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014 which requires that aid must be “likely to contribute to reducing poverty in a way which is likely to contribute to reducing inequality between persons of different gender”.