Favour Ishember, Abuja
The Federal Government has launched the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, a new ₦365 million annual award scheme to recognize and reward outstanding academic research, innovation and intellectual excellence in Nigerian tertiary institutions.
Dr. Maruf Olatunji Alausa, CON, Honourable Minister of Education, announced the initiative on Tuesday in Abuja, describing it as a deliberate move to reposition education as a driver of national development.
Alausa said he has inaugurated the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize Committee and tasked it with providing strategic direction, governance and integrity for the programme.
“The National Laureate Prize represents a deliberate effort by the Federal Government to strengthen Nigeria’s culture of scholarship and innovation by ensuring that exceptional academic achievement receives the national recognition it deserves,” he said.
The Minister noted that for years the country’s reward systems have not adequately celebrated the work taking place in universities and other tertiary institutions. He said young Nigerians and academics across the country are conducting research, developing solutions, creating new technologies and generating ideas to address pressing developmental challenges, and they deserve to be seen, supported and celebrated.
Alausa stated that the message of government is clear: scholarship matters, research matters, innovation matters, and intellectual excellence deserves a prominent place in national consciousness.
The prize is part of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the education sector. It will be jointly implemented by the Federal Ministry of Education and the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, NERD.
Alausa said the scheme will provide a structured national platform for identifying and rewarding exceptional academic research with significant potential for innovation, commercialization, industrial application and national development.
An annual prize pool of approximately ₦365 million has been earmarked for different categories. These include undergraduate dissertations with strong commercial potential, exceptional Master’s theses, and Doctoral Ph.D. theses with clear industrial and developmental applications.
There will also be Special Prizes for outstanding work in critical fields: Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation.
Some Special Prizes will honour distinguished Nigerians whose lives symbolize exceptional service, courage and contribution to the nation.
One of such is the Dr. Stella Adadevoh Prize for Medicine and Medical Innovation. The award honours the physician whose courage and professional sacrifice helped prevent the 2014 Ebola outbreak from becoming a national catastrophe. Alausa said her legacy shows the transformative power of knowledge, professionalism and service to humanity.
The Minister told the Committee that the credibility of the prize will depend on the credibility of its selection process.
He said the process will be transparent, competitive, merit-driven and insulated from political, institutional or personal influence. “Excellence must be the determining factor,” he added.
Participation and submission of academic reports and entries will conform with the National Policy on the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank. This, he said, will strengthen the integrity, accessibility and long-term preservation of Nigeria’s intellectual output.
Beyond the awards, Alausa said the National Laureate Prize is not just another awards program. It is an instrument for changing aspirations.
“We want Nigerian students to understand that there is honour in scholarship, opportunity in innovation and national recognition for intellectual excellence,” he said.
He explained that an undergraduate developing a commercially viable innovation should know Nigeria values that work. A Master’s student investigating a solution to a national problem should know the country is paying attention. Doctoral researchers should see a clear pathway from academic research to industrial application, enterprise creation and national development.
The Minister said Nigeria must build an education system that does not simply produce certificates but produces solutions, innovations, enterprises and measurable national value.
“The most successful nations of the twenty-first century will not necessarily be those endowed with the greatest natural resources. They will be those that can systematically transform knowledge into solutions, research into enterprise, and intellectual capital into economic and industrial value,” Alausa stated.
Through the prize, he said, government is making a national statement that the innovator matters, the scholar matters, the researcher matters, and the rigour of laboratories and intellectual institutions deserves national celebration.
Under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, Alausa said the administration remains committed to building an education system that develops the knowledge, skills, creativity and innovation required to drive Nigeria’s economic transformation and global competitiveness.
“The Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize is another important step in that direction,” he said.
He concluded: “Together, we will build a Nigeria where excellence is recognised, scholarship is celebrated, innovation is rewarded, and the intellectual capacity of our young people is deliberately harnessed for national development.”
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