Vice Chancellor, University of Ilorin UNILORIN) Professor Wahab Egbewole, has advocated a restructure of the university system in Nigeria where grantsmanship will be recognised in promotion guidelines.
Egbewole made the suggestion when he received a team of facilitators of the Train The Trainers’ (TTT) workshop on ‘Research Proposal Writing and Grant Management’ in Ilorin, midweek.
Egbewole, who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)), identified fundable research grants as one of the problems that researchers in Nigeria are battling with.
The Vice Chancellor lamented that some professors in Nigeria did not know how to write research proposals that can attract so much funding.
According to him, this is where the universities have to focus their attention, while expressing optimism that the workshop initiated by TETFund would facilitate the required enablers.
He, therefore, urged the organisers to put up some measurable indices to evaluate the success or otherwise of what has been invested in the training.
He also encouraged researchers to redirect their energy to publications that are impactful to the society and address local challenges instead of publications that are left to decay on the shelf.
The vice chancellor said that UNILORIN would also organise a similar workshop that would accommodate more staff.
Earlier, TETFund TTT team facilitator, Mr Nuhu Ogirima, said the significance of the workshop was to conduct a stepping down of knowledge earlier acquired by the facilitators on fundable research.
Ogirima explained that Nigeria is struggling among the developing nations because most of the policies of the government are not based on research from academia, which makes them unacceptable by the people.
He observed that there is no difference between academic writing, writing for promotion, writing to impact policy and writing to galvanise the economy.
“TETFund has taken a giant stride towards getting cutting edge research sponsored towards advancing the nation”, he said.