For research effort to be meaningful, it must be development-focused and not just for the sake of innovation, the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Suleiman Bogoro, has said.

Speaking in his office in Abuja while receiving a delegation of the Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI), Bogoro said his agenda was more of research and development (R&D), which delivers research efforts up to commercialization, as opposed to research and innovation (R&I), which may end up on the shelf and in academic journals without adding value to the nation’s development.

He said when research is development-focused, its products will be patented and commercialized.

The chief executive of TETFund emphasized that the nation’s research and development institutions (RDIs) are product-based and not dwelling on just theories but regretted that the situation in the research institutes which, according to him, are supposed to be centres of excellence, is parlous and painful.

Bogoro said the Nigerian Research Community – universities, polytechnics, colleges of education and RDIs – must be united as stakeholders, adding that this was why he had been talking about Research and Development Foundation which, according to him, will compel all industries to set aside money for R&D.

He told his guests that although R&D is the main thing, we cannot have R&D without R&I, adding that the researcher and industry must partner for mutual progress. He said research fellows in RDIs are supposed to mentor people by partnering with universities and industry.

Professor Bogoro said, “Most researchers should go on sabbatical in the industry while university people should go to research institutes because you people are practical. I see you people as very important partners as centres of excellence. I consider you (RDIs) as cousins.”

Speaking earlier, the secretary general of ASURI, Dr. Theophilus Ndubuaku, congratulated the executive secretary on his well-deserved recall to TETFund.

Ndubuaku narrated the plight of the Nigerian researchers in RDIs and asked for clarification as to whether researchers in RDIs could benefit from the National Research Fund, which is domiciled with TETFund, adding that the rejection of the National Research and Innovation Council Bill a second time by Mr. President made the clarification very compelling.

To this, the TETFund ES responded in the affirmative, but added that as presently structured, they (researchers in RDIs) would have to go through their counterparts in the universities.

Not fewer than 20 RDIs are located in the Federal Capital Territory