Dr. (Mrs.) Helena Asamoah-Hassan, the University Librarian, has been adjudged the Open Access Advocate of the Year. Dr. (Mrs.) Helena Asamoah -Hassan received a plaque as her award at the 6th Annual Research Awards ceremony held at the Emirates Stadium, London, United Kingdom.  

Dr. (Mrs.) Asamoah-Hassan and other winners were selected by internationally renowned judges from two hundred and thirty (230) plus BioMed Central journals which published more than eighteen thousand (18,000) peer-reviewed open access articles over the last twelve (12) months.

In an exclusive interview with the University Relations Office (URO), on her award, she explained that the BioMed Central Award was instituted to   recognise institutions and individuals who have shown leadership in taking steps to expand access to the publishing and regulation of scholarly materials especially in her case, helping to create the “Open Access Mandate of KNUST”.

The “KNUST Open Access Mandate” according to her is the institutional Repository and the KNUST Space which were all facilitated by her to make scholarly works and information more accessible.

Dr. (Mrs.) Asamoah Hassan was very instrumental in getting the 2nd Biomed Central Publishers Conference on Open Access in Africa being hosted in KNUST. Again through her initiative,   KNUST became the first Southern Foundation Member of BioMed Central and also the first institution in Ghana to sign the Berlin Declaration on Open Access.

She noted that her award would urge her to work harder on making scholarly information easily available to researchers. She revealed that her outfit is putting in place structures to start an Open Access Journal in KNUST soon.  

On behalf of the University management, the University Relations Office (URO) congratulates Dr. (Mrs.) Helena Asamoah-Hassan on her award.