The Federal Government has introduced the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, with an annual prize pool of about N365 million to reward outstanding academic research, innovation and intellectual excellence in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, said the prize would recognise outstanding undergraduate dissertations, Master’s theses and doctoral research with commercial, industrial or developmental potential.
Special prizes will also be awarded in areas including Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation.
Alausa said the initiative, being implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, would help identify research that can be commercialised or used to address national challenges.
He said the selection process would be transparent and merit-driven, stressing that political, institutional or personal influence would not determine the winners.
Experts, meanwhile, urged Nigerian universities to make research more practical and industry-focused, noting that many academic works fail to translate into solutions because they are not aligned with market and societal needs.
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