A Nigerian professor has said that lack of collaboration between higher institutions and companies was working against engineering development in the country.
“There is hardly any research collaboration between industries and academia,” Linus Asuquo, a professor of engineering, said on Friday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, during an engineering conference organised by the Uyo branch of the“An industry CEO once told me that engineering faculties in the country are not well equipped for research that is why they don’t bother them.”, Jos, which is under the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development.
He also identified lack of coordination and commercialisation of research as another obstacle to engineering development in the country. He said besides universities and other higher institutions, some Nigerian companies have been involved in research which has helped them to develop new products. “Every research institute or tertiary institution or faculty of engineering has one innovation or the other. The question is how many of these innovations or research findings have been commercialized? How many of these researches have been popularised?”