TETFund: We’ve given over ₦24bn in research grants to tertiary institutions since 2011

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) says it has disbursed over ₦24 billion in grant money to public tertiary institutions under the National Research Fund (NRF) since 2011.

Tahir Mamman, the minister of education, spoke at the inauguration of TETFund’s reconstituted National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS & MC) and the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to guarantee quality publications in tertiary institutions.

The monitoring committees were inaugurated on Tuesday at the federal ministry of education in Abuja.

Mamman, while speaking of sustainable funding for academic research in Nigeria, said over ₦24 billion have been disbursed since 2011.

He said the 55-member reconstituted TETFund NRFS & MC has a professor named Hayward Mafuyai as the chairman.

The minister said the 48-member reconstituted TAG has another professor named Albert Abegunde as its chairman.

Mamman said the membership of the two committees was drawn from tertiary institutions, representatives of the academic staff unions of these institutions, and representatives of regulatory agencies for universities, colleges of education, and technical learning centres.

He said the NRF committee is to pre-qualify applications for research grants from academics in beneficiary institutions to ensure compliance with the approved templates for accessing the TETFund NRF grant.

It is also tasked with classifying pre-qualified research proposals into streams and disciplines to aid the appointment of assessors/reviewers, monitor the progress of ongoing research work, and carry out any other duty assigned by the fund.

In turn, TAG is charged with screening manuscripts for development into textbooks and advising TETFund on fundable proposals.

TAG will also advise TETFund on submissions from professional associations to support the production of journals and enhance the production of quality academic books, journals, and other academic learning materials.

Mamman said the federal government approved ₦5 billion for NRF and ₦8 billion to provide central multipurpose laboratories in some universities across the country among numerous other groundbreaking projects under TETFund’s 2024 intervention budget.

Earlier, a publication on the world’s best universities released its 2025 data that showed no Nigerian institution ranked in the top 1000.

The publication ranks universities based on indicators that assess performance in research, teaching, employability, and reputation.

Mamman said TETFund has continued to provide sponsorship for institution-based research (IBR) to facilitate the revival of quality research among the lecturers in Nigeria’s tertiary institutions and assist them in building capacity for higher research.

He said the education ministry has approved an upward review of the funding ceiling per IBR project from ₦2 million to ₦5 million for pure science research and ₦4 million for humanities and social sciences in line with current realities.