The Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s (TETFund) initiative to facilitate the acquisition of significant international research grants by Nigerian scholars has received a substantial boost.....KINDLY READ THE FULL STORY HERE▶
The European Union has pledged to provide €440,000 in support of selected research teams in Nigeria as part of the Horizon Europe Project.
Tope Toogun, who leads the TETFund team responsible for the Horizon Europe program, disclosed this development on Thursday during a briefing with TETFund’s Executive Secretary, Sunny Echono….CONTINUE READING
The purpose of the meeting was to update Echono on the ongoing efforts to ensure the active participation of Nigerian researchers in the globally renowned research initiative. This information was shared in a statement released on Friday in Abuja.
Toogun expressed concern that despite Nigeria’s wealth of intellectual resources, the country’s researchers had previously struggled to access grants for the EU Horizon project. He stated, “It is embarrassing that Nigeria, with all our intellectual capital, cannot participate in Horizon.
The EU operates on a seven-year framework, the current one being Horizon Europe, while the previous framework was known as Horizon 2020, running from 2013 to 2020.”
He went on to highlight that Africa had received approximately 350 projects within this framework. However, Nigeria had not been prominently involved, with countries like South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, and Kenya taking the lead.
Toogun emphasized that Nigeria had been on the sidelines and identified the lack of organization and preparation among Nigerian researchers as a major hindrance to accessing Horizon project grants.
To address these challenges, TETFund had established the team to facilitate Nigerian researchers’ participation and remove obstacles.
TETFund’s Executive Secretary echoed the agency’s commitment to enhancing the competitiveness of Nigerian researchers on the global stage.
He noted that TETFund was actively targeting other international research bodies to secure grants for scholars in the country.
