Charles Ogwo
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has assured that approvals for research grants would be doubled in 2021.
Prof Suleiman Bogoro, the Executive Secretary, TETFund, said the approvals would be increased from over 128 made in 2020.
The TETFund boss said the approvals would be made public once the Board of Trustees gives its approval.
Bogoro stated this when a team of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies ( NIPS), Kuru, Senior Executive Course 43, 2021, visited him in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said that only qualified institutions will draw a maximum of N50 million research grants from the N7.5 billion National Research Fund,(NRF)..
The Executive Secretary said that in the 2021 budget, which is awaiting approval, the agency will fund the establishment of more molecular labs and research on gene sequencing and phytogenic medicine, as well as vaccine research and production, as a key area of unravelling the lethal covid-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, he stated that under the instruction of President Muhammadu Buhari, the fund provided research intervention between N250 to N300 million to set up at least a quarter of the molecular labs established in the country.
“We discovered that those facilities are helpful for both research and clinical purposes and the facilities will help sustain medical research in the country”, he stated.
Bogoro reiterated that the funds were meant for some medical research institutes and colleges for the purpose of research.
Noting that most university lecturers in the country currently have PhDs,
He stressed that only 40 per cent of university lecturers had PhDs nine years ago.
