By Ngozi Nwankwo
Federal Government has launched the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, a ₦365 million annual award scheme to recognise outstanding academic research, innovation and intellectual excellence in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa, announced the initiative at a press briefing in Abuja, saying the prize will provide a structured national platform to reward research with potential for commercialisation, industrial application and national development.
“Scholarship matters; research matters; innovation matters; and intellectual excellence deserves a prominent place in our national consciousness,” Alausa said.
The Minister said the prize pool will cover undergraduate dissertations with commercial potential, exceptional Master’s theses, and Ph.D. theses with clear industrial and developmental applications.
Special prizes will also be awarded in Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation.
One of the special awards will be the Dr. Stella Adadevoh Prize for Medicine and Medical Innovation, named in honour of the physician whose intervention helped contain the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria.
Alausa said he had inaugurated a Laureate Prize Committee to provide strategic direction and ensure integrity in the implementation of the scheme.
He stressed that the selection process will be transparent, competitive, merit-driven and insulated from political or institutional influence.
Submissions will be made through the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, NERD, in line with the National Policy on the repository to ensure preservation and accessibility of Nigeria’s intellectual output.
The Minister described the prize as part of the education component of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and said it is being implemented jointly by the Federal Ministry of Education and NERD.
“We want Nigerian students to understand that there is honour in scholarship, opportunity in innovation and national recognition for intellectual excellence,” Alausa said.
He added that the goal is to build an education system that produces solutions, enterprises and measurable national value, rather than certificates alone.
“The most successful nations of the 21st century will be those that can systematically transform knowledge into solutions, research into enterprise, and intellectual capital into economic value,” he said.
The Minister said the initiative reflects government’s commitment to developing the knowledge, skills and creativity required to drive Nigeria’s economic transformation and global competitiveness.
