Professor Divine Kwaku Ahadzie of the Centre for Settlement Studies of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has won the 2020 ‘Driving the impact agenda ‘category of the Real Impact Award.
The Real Impact Awards organised by Emerald Publishing, United Kingdom, aims at raising the profile of individuals, teams and institutions that are committed to real impact through their research. It also recognises innovative approaches to achieving real impact, bridge the gap between research and practice by celebrating truly collaborative ways of working and finally tell the real impact success stories and celebrate those driving the debate.
Professor Ahadzie is the first African and the first University academic from an emerging economy to win the award. Professor Jan Godsell of University of Warwick, UK, won the inaugural award in 2018, while the 2019 edition went to the Knowledge Transition Team of Melbourne Children’s Centre for Community Child Health, Australia, led by the Associate Director, Sue West.
Professor Divine Kwaku Ahadzie, is an Associate Professor of Construction and Human Settlement Development at the Centre for Settlement Studies. His research interest focuses on housing and environment, specifically, affordable housing solutions for informal settlements and building resilient communities for flood risk management. He had his secondary education at the then Technology Secondary School, Kumasi, Ghana (now KNUST Senior High school). He obtained his BSc in Building Technology from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 1990. He later acquired an MSc in Construction and Project Management at the University of Manchester, Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). He earned his PhD in Construction and Project Management at the University of Wolverhampton, UK.
Professor Ahadzie has over 70 publications to his credit in highly rated international Journals and has contributed to three book chapters published by Routledge - Taylor and Francis, UK. He is also a recognised publons.com academy reviewer, having reviewed over 80 manuscripts for top international journals across the world. He has participated in several international conferences across the globe including London, Manchester, Brussels, Nairobi, Dar es Salam, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Kara, Togo, and Abeokuta, Nigeria.
In 2017, Prof Ahadzie received an outstanding reviewer award from the International Journal of Project Management, for his review services. He is passionate about research going beyond the Ivory Tower to impact change on the society and has contributed to numerous online articles to shape national discourse.
The Management of KNUST congratulates Professor Ahadzie for winning this prestigious award.