Prof. Muhammad AbdulAzeez, the Vice Chancellor, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi state has advocated for the establishment of Deputy Vice Chancellors for Research and Development in Nigerian universities.
AbdulAzeez made the call in Bauchi on Wednesday during the 2nd quarterly meeting of Committee of Directors of Research and Development of North-East Nigerian public Universities.
According to him, the establishment of the DVC Research and Development would not only be ideal but it would further create an awareness that the universities were competent for both research and teaching.
“When we are talking about teaching, we have Deputy Vice Chancellors for Academics, we also have Deputy Vice Chancellors for Administration, but there are no Deputy Vice Chancellors for research.
“I’m suggesting that the establishment of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for research and development would be an ideal move because it is very important as it would create awareness that these universities are competent for both research and teaching.
“When you have a good research and development Directorate in your university, you will find out that funding will not be a problem because that Directorate will attract more funds than even consultancy.
“When you have research, it’s for development and when you have development, the next thing is to try to innovate. These are the principles of setting up a university.
“When you are talking about community development, you are talking about research. If the research doesn’t have a positive impact on the communities, then there is no research,” he said.
He explained that there were lots of research grants but the problems for most universities was how to discover and access them, adding that these were some of the things a competent research and development Directorate brings to the fore to help its institution.
Also speaking, Prof. Yahaya Imam from Borno state University, said that the essence of the meeting was to identify problems and proffer the best solution to solve them themselves without anybody coming in.
“We felt as a university, we should be able to make an impact in our various environments and more especially, in this North-East zone.
“Although there is no zone in Nigeria without one problem or the other, we felt as university lecturers, we should be able to address some of these challenges and proffer workable solutions to them through our research and not just writing papers that people may not even read,” he said.
Directors of Research and Development of all the public North-Easthern universities were present for the 2nd quarterly meeting.