The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), in its move to arrest the coronavirus pandemic, has disbursed N200 million for a research focused on the virus. The move is targeted at curbing the spread of the virus and boosting the growth of the country.
This was made known by Suleiman Elias Bogoro, executive secretary, TETFUND, at a roundtable hosted by the Nigeria Triple Helix themed ‘How Innovation Drives Economic Development’ held recently.
“TETFUND is sensitive to prevailing issues and, apart from the N7.5 billion national research grant, N200 million has been disbursed to research specifically focused on COVID-19 pandemic,” Bogoro, who was represented by Salihu Bakari, director of research and development, said.
“In addition to this, two-thirds of the 2020 research grants will focus on science, technology and innovation while the rest will cut across humanities, security, national integration and others,” Bakari said.
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Mohammed Abdullahi, minister of state, Science and Technology, in his address, said that the lessons of the COVID- 19 pandemic has brought to the fore the need for Nigeria to look at home-grown innovations for economic growth, adding that the ministry has developed a science and technology park that will serve as a platform for efficient transfer of scientific and technological breakthroughs from the academia and research institutes to industries and businesses.
“The Ministry of Science and Technology believes that institutions need to become more innovative and that research and development needs to be commercially driven for industrial and economic growth,” Abdullahi said.
“Also, technological incubation centers and cluster projects are being created to facilitate the development and nurturing of young entrepreneurs and firms as the ministry is streamlining research and development across various sectors and agencies to ensure proper co-ordination.” He further said.
The minister also revealed that TETFUND is providing training to about 600 researchers to help build institutional capacity and help Nigeria compete favourably within the innovation space. He further said that the partnership of the Triple Helix Roundtable is helping to incubate ideas.
“The Science and technology innovation ecosystem (STI) roadmap will help develop the innovation space, and promote development of raw materials. It will also help universities focus on skill acquisitions rather than academic contributions,” the minister said.
Onyeche Tifase, vice-chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and managing director of Siemens Nigeria, said that the COVID-19 pandemic has made Nigeria realise the things that are lacking and also helped to create a sense of urgency for innovation. She noted that policies which incentivise the private sector need to be implemented and that the academic environment should be supported.
“Solutions need to be created according to the status quo and it is important that Nigeria focuses on strategy, structure and standard to improve and develop Nigeria’s innovation space,” she said.
The Nigeria Triple Helix Roundtable is a collaboration of the Nigerian Economic Summit group (NESG), the National Universities Commission (NUC) and the TETFUND. The Nigeria Triple Helix Roundtable adopted the concept of the Triple Helix of university-industry-government relationships model as the core operating framework for setting and delivering the University Education Reform Agenda in the Medium Term (2019- 2023) and the Long term (2023-2050) focused on repositioning the education sector to deliver national outcomes and impact.
