From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Tertiary Education Trust fund (TETFund) has constituted the National Contact Point (NCP) to serve as a channel for information dissemination on opportunities, as part of commitment towards actualising the African Union (AU) and European Union (EU) partnership on research and innovation.
Executive Secretary of TETFund, Sonny Echono, who disclosed this at the launch and presentation of the Nigerian Contact Network and presentation of work programme for 2023-2024, in Abuja, said the NCP will also provide for researchers on various workshop.
Echono said TETFund, being an intervention agency for public tertiary institutions in Nigeria, has the mandate to facilitate the institutionalization of Research and Development in tertiary institutions to support development.
Echono complained that Nigeria has not been able to participate effectively in the EU research funding framework programme until now, adding that TETFund has initiated the process to ensure that researchers from Nigerian higher education institutions participate effectively in the EU Research and Innovation framework programme, notably, the Horizon Europe.
He also said the Fund is providing further support to the NCP Network to enable it mobilize the Nigerian research community effectively to benefit from the platform and training programme to be deployed by the EU delegation.
Echono further stated that the Fund has initiated several interventions aimed at resuscitating research activities in the nation’s tertiary institutions, and the interventions are intended to facilitate cutting-edged research which will contribute national developmental efforts as well as tackle global challenges.
While stating that the Fund has supported members of NCP to participate in the AU-EU innovation agenda stakeholders event held in Nairobi, Kenya in November, 2022, he said they would be supported to execute the mandate of mobilizing Nigerian researchers to respond to calls arising from Horizon Europe.
“TETFund is supporting research groups from various Nigerian universities through provision of training and mentoring on writing successful grant applications, project management, partnership and consortia development to further complement and extend the support being made available by EU delegate.
“Currently, the Fund has released a request for expression of interest for Nigerian researchers and research teams. TETFund will spearhead the formation of a bilateral agreement on research and innovation between Nigeria and the EU, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education and in collaboration with Ministries of Foreign Affairs, and Science and Technology” he said.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Ms. Monisola Udoh, in her remarks, said the ministry is committed to fostering and supporting the collaboration of the Horizon Europe/Nigerian National Contact Point network.
“We hope that Nigeria will feature more prominently than we do in the last circle, and I am looking forward to working collaboratively with the focal persons network to push the agenda of Nigeria which is to change the narrative of Nigeria being a consumer nation to a productive nation; even in the area of knowledge creation.
“We cannot create good knowledge if we don’t do research, and the whole purpose is about supporting research and development for national development, and I am looking forward to a situation when Nigeria can trade benefits from this operation and our researchers are better empowered to do relevant research for national development.
“We need to focus on local problems that are basically human problems and if we are able to get the solution right here, Nigeria may become the provider of solution that will address humanity issues globally,” she said.