The Federal Government has given its nod to the allocation of N5.1 billion for research initiatives within the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) National Research Fund 2023 Grant Cycle. This approval falls under the TETFund National Research Fund (NRF) 2023 Grant Cycle.
The announcement, made in a statement released in Abuja on Wednesday by Abdulmumin Oniyangi, the Acting Director of Public Affairs at the Fund, highlighted that the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, conveyed the approval following the recommendations of the TETFund National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS&MC).
The committee, after an exhaustive screening process that commenced in March 2023 with the reception of 4,287 Concept Notes from potential applicants, proposed the funding of 185 research proposals.
The approved allocation is broken down as follows: N3,784,635,923.00 for the Science, Engineering, Technology, and Innovation (SETI) thematic group, N759,875,400.00 for Humanities and Social Science (HSS), and N583,669,300.63 for Cross-Cutting (CC) projects, with individual grants ranging between N8 million and over N46 million.
Among the noteworthy research works approved under the SETI thematic group are the application of the Hydro-Biogeochemical Framework to create a National Rural Water Quality Assurance Plan for Sustainable Water Quality Management in Nigeria, the development and use of doubled Haploid Maize Lines for improved maize yield and tolerance to Armyworm (Spodoptera Frugiperda), and the creation of an Intelligent Multichamber Evaporative Cooling Preservative System for post-harvest storage of selected fruits in Nigeria.
Projects under the Cross-Cutting thematic group include the utilization of scrap tires and plastic wastes as aggregate conductive material for renewable energy storage systems.
