President Muhammadu Buhari has approved N8.5 billion as National Research Fund, NRF, for the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, to conduct researches in medicine and other areas in 2021.
The TETFund Executive Secretary, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, disclosed this on Wednesday at a 3-day workshop for directors of research and development of public universities in Nigeria.
Mr Bogoro said the fund is intending to put money at the Nigerian Medical Research Institute, NMIR, to resuscitate their vaccine production.
He added he has scheduled a meeting with the Director General of NMIR, Prof Babatunde Salako, to be joined by brilliant professors of medicine from some universities for the purpose of achieving specific research objectives.
Mr Bogoro said: “With your support, I made a case to the board of trustees to increase the NRF research grants, from initially we had a seed money of N3 billion it got exhausted and N1billion was added between 2016 and 2019.
“But when I came, I decided to revolutionise it and I said it is not a question of seed money let it be annual money. And that is why I made a case for N5 billion in 2019 alone. 2020 we raised it to N7.5 billion.
“This year Mr President has approved another N7.5 billon but, guess what, with additional N1 billion that we intend to do ground breaking research around medicine even in respect of the Covid-19 challenge.”
The executive secretary decried the failure of research institutes to have the appetite to establish a good relationship with universities for the purpose of promoting research and development, stating that universities are also guilty of disregarding them.
He stressed the needs for collaboration between the universities and research institutes to know what the institutes are doing and offer assistance where necessary.
