Akor Sylvester, Abuja
The Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) on Friday launched an international peer-reviewed journal to promote research on Nigeria’s raw materials and strengthen the link between scientific innovation, industry, and national development.
Director-General of RMRDC, Professor Nnanyelugo Ike-Muonso, during the launch of the revamped Journal of Raw Materials Research (JORMAR) in Abuja, said that the Council was repositioning itself as a true research institution by providing a globally recognised platform for publishing scientific findings on Nigeria’s raw materials.
Ike-Muonso noted that the Council had produced too few peer-reviewed publications since its establishment in 1988 despite its research mandate.
He explained that the revamped journal would help change that narrative by providing researchers within and outside the Council with an internationally compliant platform to publish research findings, promote innovation and strengthen Nigeria’s industrial development.
He said the initiative also complements the Council’s newly established research and academic cadre, which is expected to boost research output and encourage academic excellence.
According to him, “There are a lot of people who actually want to publish their ideas, and it’s not there. People have done things that are patented, but they are not also been published. I don’t know why you pursue patents and you also aren’t getting those things published. And then, somebody will be out there and make some little addition to what you have done and publish it and own it”.
Chairman of the JORMAR Implementation Committee, Dr. Sab Ebiriekwe, said the journal, first published in 2004, became inactive after its last print edition in 2017, making its revival necessary in line with global trends in scientific publishing.
He explained that the journal has now migrated to a fully digital, open-access publishing platform that supports online manuscript submission, double-blind peer review, editorial processing, publication and long-term archiving.
“A journal without a credible online presence is increasingly absent from global academic discourse, regardless of the quality of the work it publishes”, he said.
Ebiriekwe said the Council had also digitised all previous editions of the journal and assigned Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to 117 legacy articles, ensuring they are permanently accessible and citable within the global scientific community.
He added that the Council was pursuing inclusion of the journal in international indexing platforms such as Google Scholar, African Journals Online, Crossref, Dimensions, Semantic Scholar and OpenAlex, with plans to meet the requirements for Scopus.
Representing the Editor-in-Chief of JORMAR, Professor Peter Onwualu, Dr. A. Bello said the revamped journal represents a strategic step towards positioning Nigeria as a leading contributor to global research on raw materials, value addition, and industrial innovation.
He noted that the journal would publish multidisciplinary research spanning raw materials development, manufacturing, materials science, environmental sustainability, circular economy, industrial competitiveness, and supply chain management.
According to him, the journal will uphold internationally accepted standards of editorial independence, rigorous peer review, research integrity and ethical publishing while fostering stronger collaboration between researchers, industry, policymakers and development partners.
The Journal of Raw Materials Research serves as a scientific repository documenting research findings, innovations and critical information on Nigeria’s raw material resources, including their availability, processing technologies, industrial applications and value-addition opportunities.
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