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By Gabriel Dike
The management of Grooming Centre (GC) has announced the kick off of the 2025 university grant award for postgraduate and undergraduate students nationwide worth N20million.
The Head of Special Project of Grooming Centre, Mr. Chikezie Egbulefu, disclosed this at a media briefing to announce the opening of entry for the 2025 Grooming Centre university grant award, which is the seventh edition.
He revealed that the centre’s commitment to educational development in Nigeria culminated in the institutionalization of the Lady Kate Okafor scholarship scheme and the Grooming Centre university grant scheme.
According to him, the centre has expended over N850million in bursary awards to winners and administration of both schemes.
Egbulefu disclosed that entry for the grant award opened on Monday, July 21st and will close on Friday, October 10th, 2025. He urged interested students to submit soft copy of their project via e-mail address www.groominggrant.org/apply.
He said the scheme is one of Grooming Centre’s programmes, which is aimed at contributing to educational development and poverty alleviation in the country.
Said he: “The scheme was envisioned by the Governing Council and management of the Grooming Centre to be a catalyst in research and knowledge development in areas of social enterprise, microfinance, inclusive finance, poverty alleviation and rural development.”
The head of special project disclosed that the sixth edition was the first time 150 students met the criteria and were selected by the grant Technical Committee as winners out of 550 projects submitted.
He added: “The 150 winners comprise 100 undergraduates and 50 postgraduates. There were also four doctorate students among the 50 postgraduate winners, bringing the total number of doctorate students to have won the award to 11.”
Egbulefu recalled that the Grooming Centre university grant scheme, which started in 2019 with barely 25 winners from eight institutions, has grown to reach 150 winners from 55 institutions in 2024.
He disclosed that since inception in 2019, the scheme has produced 543 winners made up of 305 undergraduates and 238 postgraduate students, adding, that the grant is opened to students in public and private institutions in the country.
Giving further details about the Grooming Centre grant, Deputy Manager, HR and Admin, CREM Consulting, Mrs. Lydia Aromolaran, said applicants must be a student at undergraduate or postgraduate level in any Nigerian institutions whose research study covers financial inclusion, microfinance, rural development, social enterprise, MSMEs, technological development, digital finance, youth development, women empowerment or any research that is aimed at lifting people out of poverty.
Aromolaran other criteria include submission of written recommendations from their project supervisor/HOD, research must reflect high level of originality, imaginative thought and be data inclusive. She said the applicants are to submit a research concept of between 10-20 pages, which will include introduction, statement of the problem, research questions, research objectives, significance of the study, scope of study, literature and theoretical review, empirical review should be from is between 2019 to 2025 and submission of final copy of research in Microsoft word format.
The Chief Operating Officer of CREM, Mr. Clifford Onyeike, said the technical committee will evaluate the progress made by past winners.
