British Council, EU varsities’ grant remain inaccessible as scarcity of research persist

Nigeria’s 2015 target on food sufficiency may suffer setback as the United Kingdom’s 150,000 pounds (N35,250,000) and European Union research grant of 3 million Euros (N654,000,000) meant to support research findings mainly in soil science to boost food production in the country remain inaccessible with the international agencies.

There has been missing link in connecting the nation’s research finding and the real sector of the economy and the British Council has commenced plans to connect researches of both local and international universities to drive a knowledge-based economy.

Notably, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND) has complained that 70 percent of its fund remains inaccessible by the nation’s universities.

As scarcity of research persists with Nigeria currently spending N415.3bn on food importation, Anthony Chukwuma, project director at British Council at a research links workshop in Abuja, said: “Bringing researchers across the globe contributes to the growth of global knowledge economy.

The research basically are drawn from different parts of the world around and sharing topics on ‘Future proofing agricultural production against environmental change’.

He said further: “What we seek to advance is networking of both local and international Universities together on driving a knowledge based economy through research and Development.”

Soil science, which is the study of soil as a natural resources on the surface of the earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological and fertility properties of soil, is an area experts believe could fast-track Nigeria’s food sufficiency target even as the whole world faces climate change threat.

The British Council has commenced the process of networking local and international Universities since 2013and process of collaboration also advances both countries to on the spot visit to respective universities to understudy one another with a view to advancing a knowledge-based economy.

Chukwuma also stated that “there are lots of ways researchers could get grants. For instance the universities that participated with us at the workshop would also get travel grant to advance their knowledge.

“We actually give research to such universities to go to the United Kingdom and advance their knowledge. Our hope is that they come back with the technical know-how to impact on our local universities.

“We have also adopted a monitoring mechanism that we use in tracking whatever support we are rendering to the nation’s universities locally,” he added.

The missing link between the nation’s universities and the industries persists on lack of effective communication between both parties and Akanino Odon of Envirofly Consulting Group, said: “There must be communications between both parties. This must begin by industries even siting some of their feeder factories inside the schools so that students could leverage on it for their practicals.”

“For instance, in Lancaster University, there are about 23 environmental health companies inside the university. What they do is once there is request for a project, they request for some of our students, from there, the students also get their experience and grow their knowledge holistically. Industries and schools need to talk to each other to advance global knowledge and competitiveness.

“Closing the gap requires an holistic understanding of the problem. The reason why the Federal Government develops cold feet on researches is that there is very little conversion between research findings and practical experience. The reason why the Federal Government would vote more money for researches is where they have seen it has impacted practically on the economy and even grow the GDP,” Akanino added.

He also suggested the establishment of an intermediary department that could be called, ‘Department of Research Planning’ that would constantly discuss with industries on the possible areas of exploring to link research findings with growth.

Harrison Edeh