The Federal Government has earmarked about N365 million annually for a new national prize aimed at rewarding outstanding research, innovation and intellectual excellence across Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, who made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja, explained that the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize was designed to identify and reward academic research with strong potential for innovation, commercialisation, industrial application and national development.
Alausa said the initiative would cover outstanding undergraduate dissertations, Master’s theses and doctoral research, while special prizes would be awarded in critical areas including Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation.
He said the Federal Ministry of Education had inaugurated the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize Committee to provide strategic direction, governance and ensure the integrity of the award process.
According to him, the initiative was part of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu in the education sector and was being jointly implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD).
Alausa said the government was determined to change the culture around academic excellence by ensuring that outstanding researchers and innovators receive national recognition and support.
He said: “Our message is therefore very clear: scholarship matters; research matters; innovation matters; and intellectual excellence deserves a prominent place in our national consciousness.”
The minister said the country had for too long failed to sufficiently celebrate the remarkable research and innovative work being carried out in universities and other tertiary institutions.
He noted that Nigerian students and academics were developing solutions, technologies and ideas capable of addressing some of the country’s most pressing developmental challenges.
“As a Government, we believe that these young men and women and our distinguished academics deserve to be seen, supported and celebrated.”
Alausa disclosed that one of the special prizes would be named after the late Dr Stella Adadevoh, in recognition of her courage and professional sacrifice during the 2014 Ebola outbreak.
The Dr Stella Adadevoh Prize for Medicine and Medical Innovation, he explained, would honour exceptional contributions to medicine and innovation while preserving the legacy of the physician whose intervention helped prevent the Ebola outbreak from becoming a national catastrophe.
The minister stressed that the credibility of the National Laureate Prize would depend largely on the integrity of its selection process.
He assured that the process would be transparent, competitive and merit-driven, and insulated from political, institutional and personal influence as he stated that
“Excellence must be the determining factor.”
He added that participation and submission of academic reports would conform with the National Policy on the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, in order to strengthen the integrity, accessibility and long-term preservation of the country’s intellectual output.
Alausa said the initiative went beyond creating another awards programme, stressing that it was intended to change the aspirations of Nigerian students and researchers.
The minister added that the government wanted undergraduates developing commercially viable innovations to know that their work mattered, while Master’s and doctoral researchers should see a clear pathway from academic research to industrial application, enterprise creation and national development.
“Ultimately, we must build an education system that does not simply produce certificates but produces solutions, innovations, enterprises and measurable national value.”
According to him, countries that would
succeed in the 21st century would not necessarily be those with the greatest natural resources, but those capable of systematically transforming knowledge into solutions, research into enterprise and intellectual capital into economic and industrial value.
Alausa said the National Laureate Prize was therefore a deliberate national statement that innovators, scholars and researchers mattered to Nigeria’s development.
He reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to building an education system capable of producing the knowledge, skills, creativity and innovation required to drive Nigeria’s economic transformation and global competitiveness.
