Nigeria News

Between research, development and innovation

December 29, 2020

By Idris Bugaje

Sir: Recently, there was a hype on research in Nigeria by the Tertiary Education Fund (Tetfund), with the inauguration of a National Research Committee, plans for a National Research Foundation and the award of 12 Tetfund Centres of Excellence to some universities across the six geo-political zones. A lot of euphoria and passion was exhibited, but if care is not taken and the energy directed well, it may turn out to be another big storm in a tea cup.

back link building services=0></a></div><p>Tetfund has been doing very well in bridging the Infrastructural gaps in tertiary Institutions across the country, especially now under the leadership direction of its current chairman. Some states-owned institutions of higher learning have no source of capital budget except through Tetfund. It is therefore good for Tetfund to look into other areas of national development, and that’s why research has become an important national agenda to promote.</p><p>But the question to ask is: have we, as a nation, understood what research is? Research itself is worthless unless it leads to innovations. The Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for innovations are its positive impact on the national economy and its generation of international patents. The world is now a global village and national patents are an old tradition; an innovation must be globally tested and competitive. Innovations are what industries apply to improve production or creation of entirely new processes. Our statistics for international patents originating from Nigeria are at the moment extremely low, almost nil.</p><p>Investing public funds in the Tetfund Centres of Excellence should have been done after identifying the National Priority Areas, not by the academia alone but most importantly with industry actively participating. In the 1990s, Malaysia, during Mahathir’s first coming as Prime Minister, had what they called Intensive Research in Priority Areas (IRPA), a nationally identified roadmap developed by the Malaysian government, the industry and academia. When did we have that roundtable in Nigeria? Which key Nigerian industries have we linked to each of the 12 new Centres of Excellence to enable research moving to the next level? There is need for a re-think and re-strategizing on research in Nigeria before another quantum of waste of public funds is experienced.</p><p>Polytechnics have an important role to play in the development of technology in Nigeria, but it seems this sector is completely ignored or not recognized. Universities are at the centre-stage of these awards, yet everyone talks of ‘development’ after the ‘research’, and where else can this take place better than a polytechnic? When you do the bench research in university laboratories, you must move to the next level by taking it from bench to pilot industrial scale, this is what is called ‘development’. We must therefore understand the synergy between these two arms of the higher educational sector.</p><div class='code-block code-block-5' style='margin: 8px 0; clear: both;'> <a href=https://www.adhang.com/guest-posting-services/ ><img class=lazy src=

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