I consider myself very privileged

I am Grace Adzo Motey, a PhD student from Ghana. I have been staying in Copenhagen since December 1, 2016 and worked on some of the aspects of my PhD. I will finish by October 31, 2017. Danida has made my stay in Denmark possible through the Green Growth project, which has my university  - University for  Studies, Ghana - as a partner.

Focus on fermented foods
PhD work seeks to identify potential probiotic in some West African traditional fermented foods. I consider myself as very privileged to be one of students who have this opportunity to study with the fellowship provided by Danida Fellowship Centre. I must say, the experience has been a very good one.

Impressed by close collaboration between researchers and industries
I have had the opportunity to interact with very good and experienced researchers, technicians and fellow students in the department in addition to working with state-of-art equipment in my laboratory analysis.

My great moment of inspiration was on “fermentation  at the FOOD section of the Faculty of Science, KU. This was an occasion when and industry players came together to display products of their innovations as well as making presentations on findings of interesting work related to industry. I was greatly impressed by the close working relationship between researchers/academia and the industry. I realized that this is the norm in Denmark. Also, the course on “responsible conduct  research” has brought the revelation of very common mistakes and misconducts, which could have dire consequences on my career in research.

I am very glad that I had the opportunity to learn and I would recommend a similar course for my institution in Ghana to improve the conduct of research. It was always exciting to interact and learn from fellows from other cultures at Danida Fellowship Centre. I know these experiences will stay with me for a long time to come.