UniJos to consider research grants won by academic staff as criteria for promotion

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Jos, Professor Tanko Ishaya, says the university will begin according priority to grants won by academic staff as one of the criteria for promotion.

The VC said the institution will no longer rather rely only on published research papers and articles as benchmark for career progression.

He also said the university is making deliberate efforts to put its name on the global scale by attracting many research grants.

Ishaya disclosed this during an Academic and Research Grant Writing and Publishing Symposium organised by the university’s Office of Research Development (ORD) in collaboration with the Department of Science Laboratory Technology (SLT), Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Professor Rahila Gowon, the VC encouraged all academic staff in the university to key into the new direction.

He also expressed optimism that the training organized by ORD would provide researchers with hands-on experience that will boost their proposal writing capabilities for securing internationally funded projects and research grants.

According to him, plans are being put in place to ensure that during future promotion exercises in the university, additional points are awarded to academic staff who win research grants.

While describing researchers in the university as highly talented, the VC decried poor funding of research opportunities in Nigeria and called on industry players, commercial enterprises, funding partners and other stakeholders to consider research as the way forward for nation building.

Ishaya advised the Federal Government to establish Research and Development (R&D) Departments in every government agency.

He said the departments would be mandated to carry out research activities geared towards providing solutions to the nation’s problems.