In 1973, two researchers at the Monash Institute of Reproduction and Development, Professors Alan Trounson and Carl Wood, achieved the world’s first IVF pregnancy. Even though the pregnancy did not reach full term, the work they undertook led to the world’s first IVF baby being born in the UK in 1978.
The team went on to achieve Australia’s first (and the world’s fourth) successful IVF birth in 1980. The pair, along with gynaecologist colleague John Wood, also became world pioneers of using fertility
drugs that could then be frozen.
This had a huge impact on the success rate of IVF and their achievements continue to make a huge impact in reproductive science.
This singular research effort has nearly made nonsense of the term infertility as many people who hitherto thought they were incapable of bearing their own children are now able to do so, even late in life.
Cervical cancer used to be a leading cause of death among women but a research conducted at the University of Queensland in Brisbane by Professor Ian Frazer led to the development of a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer – the world’s first cancer vaccine. The vaccine, now available in at least 120 countries, is helping to eliminate cervical cancer – the second most common cancer in women and is estimated to save a quarter of a million lives annually.
Similarly, the University of Otago’s commercial arm, Otago Innovation Ltd, developed a world-leading oral delivery method for vaccines for commercial use. Oral vaccines are important, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria, as it makes vaccine delivery easier and there is less need for refrigeration.
These researches are among those that have changed the world for the better.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the things that came to the fore was Nigeria’s lack of capacity and poor investment in research.
Whereas, scientists and researchers in other countries got to work in laboratories finding solutions and coming up with vaccines, which have helped to curtail the disaster the pandemic would have wreaked on the world, Nigeria’s scientists and researchers were missing in action.
The world over, those in academia contribute to bettering the world with problem solving research but that has not been the case back home where even science laboratories are so poorly equipped in some schools and there are often stories of computer science graduates who never saw a computer till they graduated.
The investment in research by agencies of the government over the years does not also show any form of seriousness. Otherwise, how do you explain that in nine (9) years, research grants to universities by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) was only N4 billion?
Over the years, one of the things TETFund has come to be identified with is construction of buildings on campuses of tertiary institutions.
These buildings stand out from others nearly everywhere they are sited and cannot be missed, especially as they usually bear the inscription “Tetfund Intervention” on them.
On the basis of this, one would be excused if they thought the mandate of the agency was the construction of buildings in tertiary institutions alone. This will be evidence of the lack of research by Nigerians even at a personal level.
However, there is more.
TETFund which was originally established as Education Trust Fund (ETF) by the Act No 7 of 1993 as amended by Act No 40 of 1998 (now repealed and replaced with Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act 2011), is an
intervention agency set up to provide supplementary support to all levels of public tertiary institutions with the main objective of using funding alongside project management for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of tertiary education in Nigeria.
Funds allocated to TETfund are disbursed for the general improvement of education in federal and state tertiary educations specifically for the provision or maintenance of: Essential physical infrastructure for teaching and learning; Institutional material and equipment; Research and publications and Academic staff training and development.
It is therefore befuddling that other core mandates of the agency have, over the years, been relegated with physical infrastructure taking prominence, even though Tetfund has the largest research grant in the country.
In today’s world, the knowledge economy is driven by research and any country that refuses to research or make research a priority will perish. And this is not about research for the sake of research, but quality research that proffers solutions to problems affecting
mankind.
It was therefore heart-warming to know recently that the Executive Secretary of TETfund, Suleiman Bogoro, who is on his second ‘missionary journey’ tenure having been earlier truncated on allegations of sleaze, for which he was eventually cleared by an investigative panel, has top on his agenda, a plan for new additional innovations in research, interface with industry and publications by supporting and institutionalising research and development (R&D) in
Nigerian tertiary institutions, emphasise cross specialist multi-disciplinary book publications rather than just Ph.D Thesis,
establish and support TETfund Centres of Excellence in tertiary institutions, consistent with global practice, and so help to enhance rating of our tertiary institutions, better research and impact of research findings and development of research results to solve problems of society and technology and encouragement of standard R&D Units and Centres of Excellence in tertiary institutions.
Since Bogoro’s return, annual research grants to tertiary institutions have consistently increased from N5 billion in 2019 to N7.5 billion in 2020 and N8 billion in 2021.
I also read recently in the news that TETFund has promised to provide ‘mega research support’ to four public agencies for the purpose of producing drugs, with the National Institute for Pharmaceutical
Research and Development (NIPRD) listed as one of the agencies to benefit from the support. This will be done through the agency’s Research and Development Standing Committee (RDSC), established one year ago.
Even though details of the identity and specific research activities the other agencies are expected to undertake are still unknown, NIPRD, the reports stated, would collaborate with the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria, Ibadan, to carry out research and production of
Phytomedicine.
Additionally, plans are afoot for the establishment of a National Research and Development Foundation (NRDF) which is proposed to be a basket of funding for all researches up to $5 billion annually and targets 1 per cent of the national GDP. Corporate organisations will be mandated to support a certain percentage when the law comes into effect.
The way I see it, these are steps in the right direction.
The momentum needs to be upped, sustained and institutionalised even when Bogoro, who has proven to be the right peg in the right hole so far, is out of office.
Unless this is done, Nigeria will continue to lag behind while other countries churn out ground breaking research that will help them navigate their way out of difficult challenges.
