Industrialisation:Varsity Don Canvasses Partnership between Academia, Govt, Industry
Funmi Ogundare
A Professor of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering and former Vice-Chancellor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Michael Faborode has stressed the need for partnership between the academia, industry and government to revive industrial production for the country.
Faborode, who made this known recently while delivering the 2018 academy technology dinner lecture of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering (NAE) in Lagos, said partnerships between research institutes including universities and industries are crucial to encouraging increased research and promoting innovations. He said government’s response through the economic recovery and growth framework has not been well-conceived to douse and subsume the public outcry.
“It is now widely accepted that research and innovation are key drivers of competitiveness and economic growth. The leap from the industrial revolution to the digital revolution has largely been anchored on innovation. Several times in recent decades, modern technology movements have unleashed immense creativity and entrepreneurship that resulted in economic transformations for select regions.
“Recent efforts in China to reform national innovation systems serve to demonstrate the importance of motivating universities and research institutes, building up the innovative capacities of enterprises, and promoting industrial linkages.”
In his paper ‘Cracking the Code of Industry-Academia Partnership in Nigeria: Challenge to Knowledge Academies’, the former Secretary General, Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigeria (CVCN), described closeness to a university as an asset in terms of its innovation ecosystem, adding that this is what makes them different from businesses and governments.
“Universities are built for collaboration, for learning and discovery, and for unlocking the imagination. They are powerful incubators for start-ups and technology transfer. When encouraged, their spill overs literally make their ways into innovation ecosystems.”