Nigeria Content Online

Arrangements to establish a national research data bank in
Nigeria have reached an advanced stage, Olumuyiwa Olomade, Head, North Central
Zone of the National Centre for Technological Management (NACETEM) told the
press in his Abuja office last Thursday. The aim is that, when the data bank is
fully operational, manufacturers and industrialists will no longer depend on
imported research results to improve their production process, even as it will
make them less dependent technologically.

Mr Olomade added that there was yet to be an appropriate linkage
between researchers and the industries and as such, some industrialists still
import research products that are available in Nigeria because they have little
information about them.

“There are so many problems the industrial sector is facing, and
it has always been that the research needs of the industrial sector are taken
outside the country,” he said.

“One will like to argue that the reason is that our industrial
sector is dominated by multinationals (and) most of their research are
conducted in their parent countries but what about the small and medium scale
enterprises that are largely indigenous? Who solves their problems?” He added
that, “if the database is in place, an industrialist has a technology-related
problem, it will tell if there is work already done or presently going on in
that area.”

Private sector clearing
house

Mr Olomade said the agency will also “establish data bank on
research output” and with that they can tell how many researchers are working
on a particular research activity, where they are and what results they have.
“We should be like a clearing house to the private sector. If you have a
problem in your manufacturing processes, instead of taking these things abroad,
there should be an agency as custody of information data base that will tell
you what is on ground.”

Underscoring the importance of a research output database, he
said, “Presently, we have technology transfer offices in most of our
universities and polytechnics, everywhere that research is conducted. What that
is supposed to do is that once you are conducting a research and you have an
output that can be patented, you approach the technology transfer office in
your institution who will guide you on what to do, but we do not want to end
there.

“There must be a platform where you can log into and see at a
glance sector by sector, research that is going on and the results that are
presently available and who to contact. That is what the data bank will do. We
need to know how many researchers we have, how many qualified scientists and
engineers we have in Nigeria, what are their qualifications and their research
areas.

“Even students can use it to source for supervisors. What that one will also
do is that once we have the figures, we can now know areas in which we are very
deficient, like in biotechnology, we can now know, having conducted the census,
the number of biotechnologists in Nigeria and the areas of specialization. That
can now assist us in what is called manpower planning. Nobody can say now: ‘We
are deficient in this place, we are buoyant in this area’, but this databank
will help us. If a research is ongoing, we send progress reports on that. That
databank will make such information available to the whole world.”