The growth of society depends on many factors and institutions. One of the institutions, society needs is a school. In school, the truth and new knowledge have to be sought for the betterment of the society, especially the enhancement of socioeconomic and political development. No nation survives without school. At the same time, no industry or company survives without school. The functionality and sustainability of processes, technologies and products or solutions hinge on the school’s outputs in terms of the quality manpower and researches.
Like other countries classified as developing, Nigeria has never had it good in the area of research and development. The country has been ranked poorly on R and D key indicators over the years. Between 2015 and 2018, the country had an average rank of 91.25 score for the availability of research and training services, while it was 104.5 score for company spending on R and D, according to World Economic Forum. For the quality of scientific research institutions and university-industry collaboration in R and D, Nigeria is really lagging behind.
In the earlier article, it has been noted that stakeholders in the R and D sector must address issues impacting the sector, if truly the country aims sustainable development through steady growth of Gross Domestic Product. One of the suggestions in the previous articles is that businesses and scholars need to collaborate and ensure investigation of problems affecting every aspect of the country. This is important as the country has a few years to attain Sustainable Development Goals.
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It is necessary that businesses and academic researchers remove barriers preventing research co-creation. As an advocate of combining academic and industry principles for understanding issues discomforting people and organisation’s growth, Academic-Applied Research Co-Creation Hub is being proposed as part of solutions to the issues in the R and D sector, using academics-professionals approach. AARCOC emerged after critical analysis of the current situation of research and development engagements in Nigeria before the article published on this platform. The hub intends to make significant contributions to sustainable academic and industrial development using scientific methods.
Source: ASTI, Infoprations Analysis, 2019
Experimenting the Idea
It has been experimented in 2018. The outcomes show that taking it to the national level will help in addressing issues such as producing academic studies that are not aligned with the industries’ needs. When academics and industry experts monitored and analysed various issues during Osun 2018 governorship election campaign, the results revealed better ways of understanding physical and online spheres.
It has been clear to the proponents that the Hub will add value to industry experts in terms of having their voices in the academic community through publications. For instance, the public reactions on the insights from one of the academic publications produced from the Hub and published on this platform have indicated that Nigeria’s R and D sector could be re-energised through research co-creation. It will also be added advantage for academics to situate their research interests within the industries’ expectations.
To be part of the revolution and more details about the Hub, kindly register here.