In a bid to aid research, the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, has inaugurated an ad hoc committee on the establishment of central multipurpose laboratories in select universities in the country.
This was disclosed by the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, during the inauguration in Abuja on Monday.
According to Echono, the move was an intentional effort to provide relevant infrastructure to aid research in the country.
“It is universally accepted that innovative research and its commercialization is clearly the driver of economic growth and prosperity in the contemporary world.
“Thus, it is imperative to make conscious efforts to not only develop our human capital but to also provide research infrastructure to support innovative R&D on a sustainable basis. It is indeed a key prerequisite for accelerated national development and global competitiveness,” Echono said.
READ ALSO: JUST IN: Tribunal dismisses PDP, LP’s petition against APC, Sanwo-Olu
The TETFund boss revealed that the agency is deploying billions of naira to fund research programmes and projects with the intent of broadening the institutionalization of Research and Development to tackle national challenges.
“You will recall that the Fund has so far awarded a total of Seven Hundred and Twenty-Seven (727) Research Grants to researchers from public tertiary institutions at the cost of over N18 billion under the National Research Fund (NRF) to undertake applied research in various academic disciplines,” he said.
Echono, while highlighting some of the achievement of TETfund, stated that the organization provided resources to support groundbreaking research in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, though a major challenge for researchers was the deficit of laboratory Infrastructure.
Some members of the committee are Professor Ekanem Braide, Professor Joseph Ahaneku, Professor Suleiman Mustapha, Professor Yusuf Saidu, Professor Nasir Isa Fagge, Professor Abubakar S. Sambo, Professor Ibrahim Katampe and Mallam Buhari Mikailu.
