Unilorin News: Consolidating Our Achievements

In the past ten years, the successive leaderships of the University of Ilorin have zealously repositioned the University to   advance knowledge and transform lives through innovative academic programmes, research, and outreach.  The visible and demonstrable outcome of this mission or drive is that the university is today recognized internationally as a top-notch university and as a leader in international engagement. Of course, we must give the credits of our national and international reputation to our past leaders,who were visionary,and to the present management team, who indeed understand the dynamic factors that have been reshaping university education in the last decade.

Global free market economy imbedded in the waves of globalization as well as forces of global knowledge economy has brought the ethos of stiff competition into the management of higher education. There are a myriad of dimensions to the new culture of competition among universities, but the most noticeable ones are   the rise of global universityrankings, the development of cross-border quality assessment practices, and the proclivity for internationalization of universities. These dimensions have undeniably, consciously or unconsciously, shifted the focus of farsighted universities management much more towards quality and achievements among their students and academic staff. Although, the universalized criteria for determining the quality and achievements of universities are, to me, nothing but imperial imposition of twisted notions of quality and achievements on the rest of the world,  dynamic university leaders cannot absolve themselves from the influence of the mentality. Thus, we all aspire to be recognized as the number one or as the most reputable in quality teaching and great research capacity or prowess.

There is no doubt that Unilorin has achieved a modicum of status as a result of its reputation for stability and discipline, but it needs to consolidate its achievements by intensifying its research performance.  In line with the international definition of university achievement, universities today are classified as top-notch mainly on the basis of their research performanceand teaching quality. Research performance is measured in terms of publications, grants and applications for doctoral study. Certainly, through a reputable or intimidating research performance, a university's capacity in all global spheres including drawing of foreign students, raising of donations and winning cooperative projects can be enhanced. A reputable research performance magnets brilliant students to a university and accrues for it enviable prestige.

It is my belief that our research policy at the University of Ilorin is built on the mission to achieve the few aforementioned benefits of an enviable research performance. To this end, I am inclined to commend the University's Center for Research, Development and In-House Training (CREDIT) under the leadership of the young, vibrant and ingenious Professor of Microbiology, Professor (Mrs.) T. Olajidi. If you all agree with me that the Center for Research Development and In-House Training has been marvelous in driving us to attain prestige as a research university, then we must appreciate the past Deputy Vice-Chancellors (Research. Technology and Innovation, Professor Oladele, as well as the present one, the German Machine of our University, Professor G.A. Olatunji, for passionately and industriously driving the research mission of the University.

Meanwhile, the singular efforts of the unassuming Professor that was specifically appointed as Research Manager (Humanities) for the task of propelling and enhancing the University research performance need to be recognized. Professor Y. Imam, working silently but purposively under the indefatigable and resourceful duo of Professor Olatunji and Professor Oladiji,  has been absolutely amazing in his drive and vision for the University. Even though he had overall best performance in the interviewing process for all the applicants for the Research Manager position when he was appointed in 2011, many critics and skeptics that did not have knowledge of his ability, including me, gave him no iota of hope or benefit of the doubt for an outstanding performance and success. But today, as a Professor that had himself single-handedly won several big, juicy research grants, he has convinced me that his love for the University, his innovativeness anddrive to attaining prestige for the University are uncommon among the top echelon of the University's senior colleagues.  He had sought and facilitated proposal writing for many multimillion dollar grants in which I had had several privileges of participating. The prominent one that has been pretty fascinating to me is the proposal for the multimillion pound Ebola Research Grant that was submitted to the University management two weeks ago after about eight months of tiring, nerve-cracking brainstorming and meetings driven by Professor Luke Edungbola- the ever agile former DVC (Academic) of the University.Besides, Professor Imam has assiduously worked to attract and facilitate the winning for the University a number of research grants. Such grants include but not limited to theCODESRIA Grant for Comparative Research Network ($25,000) won by Drs. M.A. Adedimeji and ShittuRaji of CPSS, Social Science Research Council Grant ($20,000) won by Dr G. Animasawun, CPSS, and 2014 African Humanities Program Postdoctoral Fellowship funded by the American Council of Learned Societies. N.Y ($18,000) won by Dr AbdullateefOnireti Ibrahim, Department of Arabic.

If Professor Imam, under the supervision of theamiable and purposeful Director of the Centre for Research and In-House Training, is given more supports and motivation to build on this budding research grant profile, Unilorin will consolidate its achievements and  soon grow to the prestigious level of top research universities like the University of Florida that had in 2014 up to about 254 awards translating to about $96,685,921 and the University of Edinburg in the UK that won 156 research grants worthy £135 million. And, surely, the drivers at the Center for Research Development will definitely have etched their names in gold.