UNILAG academic staff attract N1.25bn research grants, varsity spends N100m monthly on power

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Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, on Monday, said that academic staff  attracted about N1.25 billion research grants to the university in the past one year.
Ogundipe made the disclosure in Lagos.
According to the vice-chancellor, the university has made much efforts to attract funds to develop research, in the realisation that only government or the university cannot fund research.
“We have also made submissions to some calls through multi-disciplinary cluster groups we created.
‘’The African Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery, Herbal Medicine and Regulatory Science, headed by Prof. Olukemi Ogunkoya, won a World Bank NUC  – National Universities, Commission –  call for African Centre of Excellence Impact.
“The grant is worth over $4.5 million (about N1.5 billion)
“The executive secretary of the NUC was particularly impressed with the university’s nine submissions and the enthusiasm shown by the research teams that submitted different proposals,” he said.
Ogundipe said that the university had equally strengthened its research centres and given them the mandate to pursue research that could attract grants from multi-national corporations and government agencies.
“Four of the research centres were launched within the year, with two of them being the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA) Centres for Excellence for Housing and Centre for Entrepreneurship.
‘’This centres have won the bid to host the ARUA Centre of Excellence in the university, to be funded with 200,000 dollars yearly by ARUA.
“To enhance our research visibility also, we have collaborated with Vitafoam Nigeria, and this led to the donation of a polyurethane laboratory worth N20 million.
‘’We have also received some equipment worth $200,000 from the U.S to support research in the Central Research Laboratory,’’ he said.
According to Ogundipe, the next four years will, therefore, witness accelerated pace in the institution’s drive for research funding.
On collaboration, the vice-chancellor said that he believed that the university could no longer operate in ‘silos’.
He said that the management had taken trips to meet with agencies, foreign governments and international organisations as well as universities to create collaborations that would move the institution forward.
“We have visited the Finnish, Chinese, German and French embassies in Abuja to share our vision with them and seek their support in actualising the vision.
“I also led a team from the university to  Finland, Canada, China and United Kingdom to establish new relationships that will eventually help us launch into the world knowledge market.
‘’ I am pleased to let you know that we have made some quick gains in this.
“At separate times in the outgoing year, a team from Finland and the ambassador of Finland to Nigeria visited the university to work out how we can further consolidate the relationship between Finland and University of Lagos.
‘’ This will eventually lead to an agreement with VTT Technical Research Centre in Finland on our entrepreneurship drive and exchange of staff and students,’’ he said.
The professor  added that the university was  making inroad into the Carribean, having recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
‘’The MoU was signed with the Carribbean Maritime University to develop critical human capital needed to address the shortage in Nigeria’s maritime industry,’’ he said.
The vice chancellor said that  Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo had expressed delight in the initiative and expressed willingness to support it.
Meanwhile, Osinbajo is to deliver the next convocation lecture of the university scheduled for January 21, 2019.
Ogundipe said that the lecture would be part of activities for the 2017/2018 convocation of the 56-year-old institution.
He said that the topic of the lecture would soon be made known as preparations for the ceremony had almost been concluded.
“ The Vice-President of the Gambia, Ousainou Darboe, who is an alumnus of the university, will chair the long service award ceremony on January 25.
“ There is something new that we want to introduce: that is, all the faculties, a day before their convocation, will do what they call the hood celebration.
“People who are going to graduate  will go to their faculties, get seated, and the dean, with the faculty officer, will put the hood on them.
“We should give them that university culture for them to know  they are recognised and given that honour; then, the following day, they will come for the ceremony (convocation),” he said.
Ogundipe, the 12th Vice-Chancellor of the university, identified funds constraint as a major challenge to the institution.
According to him, funds constraint made the institution’s management to  look for more ways to generate funds.
He said that the university’s  monthly spending was high.
“For example, for electricity supply, our expenses every month from the national grid is about N60 million. This does not include diesel.
“On diesel, we spend about N15 million monthly, and this does not include that of College of Medicine in Idi-Araba.
“That of Idi-Araba campus, from the brief they gave me, is about N20  million in the average per month; so, we are talking of about N100 million for power supply every month.
“We do not allow local generators on campus. The university runs about  20 hours of power supply every day.
“ The bill we pick up is a lot; that is why we want government’s intervention in funding university education, especially in Lagos.
“ Our terrain is very hostile because it is a wet land. To put up a solid high-rise structure in the university, we will be talking of about N3 billion because we will need to sandfill,’’ Ogundipe said.
According to him,  the institution is going through a lot because of the terrain and location.

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