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Wole Balogun, Ado-Ekiti
The Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), Prof Kayode Soremekun, and the Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC) of the University of Ibadan, (UI), Prof. Kayode Adebowale, have urged the Federal Government to provide more funding support for interdisciplinary research in Nigerian universities.
The administrators made the appeal to government during a one-day capacity building workshop on grantsmanship organised by FUOYE’s Faculty of Sciences. The workshop titled “Breaking barriers and creating new frontiers through multidisciplinary research and grantsmanship”, hosted professors from UI, Federal University of Technology, Obafemi Awolowo University and University of Lagos, among other institutions, who delivered lectures and trained participants on grantsmanship. They included Professor Kola Adebayo, the Director, Grants Management Office, Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta; Dr Adebusoye, the Head of Department of Microbiology, (UNILAG); and Professor Adebooye, of Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AVH), ambassador scientist in Nigeria, who spoke on strategic steps towards winning grants and postdoctoral opportunities.
While Professor Adebowale harped on extensive interdisciplinary research endeavours by academics and a culture of research, the Dean of FUOYE’s Faculty of Sciences, Prof. Olayide Lawal, in his address, said: “the culture of excellence is central to us in Faculty of Science and that explains why we are keen on organising conferences, public lectures and workshop, all with the sole aim of human capacity development. Our goal is to be recognised as a centre of excellence globally in our core areas of research in the not too distant future.”
He further explained that: “We are mindful of the fact that one of our critical roles is to organise trainings and workshops with a view to improving the capacity of our researchers in carrying out cutting-edge research that can rightly place our university in the front row among universities in Nigeria. These trainings would launch our faculty members and the entire university along the trajectory of achieving great feats on a global scale. It is our responsibility to identify the strategic needs of our researchers and we are committed to working out lasting solutions to meet such needs.
“Grantsmanship is the art of planning, sourcing for relevant information, developing persuasive and compelling proposals to acquire peer-reviewed grants, managing the funds properly and sustaining good partnership with donors and potential donors and it can only be developed through proper training and experience. The global challenge before us as researchers is to embark on findings that cross disciplinary boundaries, researches that promote ideas addressing new and emerging fields. Multidisciplinary research would enable us develop applications that introduce unconventional and innovative approaches to solving problems,” he said.
Prof. Soremekun, who promised that his administration would continue to support many programmes that promote excellence in FUOYE, said: “We have successfully established links with tertiary institutions in abroad and locally. A recent one is the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Federal Polythecnic, Ibadan on Top up and Conversion programmes with Prof. Kazeem Adekunle Adebiyi, Rector of the school where our Deputy Vice chancellor, Prof. Abayomi Fasina represented me.
“Come October 23, we are also organising an October Colloquium tagged ‘Advances in Material Applications’,through the Faculty of Engineering, where Prof. KK Alaneme of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) will share his wealth or knowledge and research findings to participants,” he said.
