ODAHIEKWU OGUNDE, Yenagoa
Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Prof Charles Adias has urged the government, corporate bodies and well-meaning individuals to support home-grown research and innovations to accelerate national growth.
He also declared the readiness of the institution to enter into partnership with state and private sponsors in the areas of research and innovations.
Adias made these known in a statement issued after the just-conluded two-day workshop organised by the university in conjunction with Centre for Petroleum, Pollution Control and Corrosion Studies (CEFPACS) with the theme, ‘Enhancing Research and Innovation for Regional and National Development.’
He said the institution’s interest in partnership on research and innovation was to encourage its vision and mission statement to expand the frontiers of knowledge and inculcate in the students qualities that would make them global change agents through creativity and innovation.
The VC noted that the place of research and development in nation building could not be overemphasized in today’s world driven largely by innovations in science and technology.
According to him, to drive this process, the university, a citadel of learning and centre of creative excellence, plays a pivotal role for homegrown solutions to put the nation on the part of development.
Also speaking, the Dean, Faculty of Sciences, Prof. Iheoma Adekunle, pointed out that the institution had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with SAGOLOMA Farms Nigeria Limited on green house technology to engage in agro-based research and proffer solutions to issues of modern day agriculture.
She also noted that the institution would engage in more capacity building workshops to expand the frontiers among university lecturers and students to exchange views and ideas on the needed homegrown research to solve contending issues in the country.
In his lecture titled, ‘Role of Research, Development and Innovation in National Development’, Director, Centre for Excellence in Emerging Technologies (CEET), Prof. Ibrahim Katampe, attributed the nation’s slow development to the lack of proper investment in homegrown research and innovations.
Katampe said despite the vast numbers of intellectuals in the nation’s tertiary institutions, poor investments in research had led to the poor technological advancement of Nigeria and had therefore turned the country into a dumping ground for innovations of other developing and developed countries.
Katampe, a Professor of Chemistry and currently the Assistant Director of Innovation & Technology Incubation at the College of Engineering, Science, Technology and Agriculture (CESTA), noted that recent checks showed that developed countries partnered with university egg-heads in the area of research and innovations to solve biting problems inhibiting development.