Dr. Tunji Olowolafe, Founder of the Tunji Olowolafe Foundation (TOF), has referred to as on Nigerian universities to open analysis to extra folks, check long-held beliefs with scientific rigour and carry discoveries out of the laboratory into the economic system.
Olowolafe, who made the decision on the Obafemi Awolowo University’s (OAU) sixty fifth anniversary in Ile-Ife, Osun State, whereas talking on the theme, “Promoting Research Excellence and Innovation in Postgraduate Studies: Charting the Future,” reframed analysis because the disciplined behavior of correcting a nation’s course based mostly on proof. He described the postgraduate faculty because the mental engine room of a nation, the place society sends its sharpest minds to problem typical knowledge and demand trustworthy, data-driven solutions.
His first technique referred to as for opening the gates of analysis earlier, wider and extra flexibly. He urged OAU to make its workers colleges benchmarks for Africa, with science, expertise and synthetic intelligence on the core of the curriculum.
He pointed to the Foundation’s Gbemisola Olowolafe Memorial Community Secondary School in Are Ekiti, which opened in September 2025 with 100 college students and now has greater than 170, alongside an ICT centre instructing synthetic intelligence (AI), coding, graphic design and Mandarin, with instructors instructing reside from Beijing via a Starlink connection.
“The postgraduate researchers of 2040 are sitting in primary classrooms today,” he mentioned.
He additionally questioned whether or not each highway to postgraduate analysis should run via a four-year diploma, inviting universities to acknowledge prior studying and demonstrated experience with out reducing requirements. With solely about a million of the 2 million UTME candidates admitted in 2025, he argued that versatile, digital examine should grow to be the usual mannequin, since a digital campus wants no bodily acreage. This builds on the Foundation’s Project Digi-Teach, which is coaching educational workers at Ekiti State University (EKSU) for digital proficiency.
His second technique urged researchers to check what society believes. Rather than dismissing indigenous data with out investigation or defending it with out validation, he referred to as for rigorous testing, citing Chinese scientist Tu Youyou, whose examine of a centuries-old natural treatment produced the malaria therapy artemisinin and a Nobel Prize. He prolonged the identical precept to nationwide historical past, together with delicate chapters such because the Civil War.
“She neither rejected tradition nor accepted it. She tested it,” he mentioned.
The third technique centered on pushing analysis out of the laboratory and immediately into the economic system. Dr. Olowolafe advocated college promotion constructions that reward patents, business merchandise and solved industrial issues alongside conventional journal publications.
“Research is complete only when it leaves the laboratory and improves lives,” he mentioned.
Pointing to OAU’s distinctive tech pedigree, together with Flutterwave and Moniepoint based by its graduates, he challenged the worldwide alumni group to scale up their monetary, institutional and mentorship help for analysis tenfold.
To help this imaginative and prescient, the Foundation will set up a solar energy system for the Postgraduate College, present a digital studying and oral protection facility and modernize the College Boardroom. TOF may also fund pilot research on a case-by-case foundation and sponsor coaching in grant writing and donor compliance, working with OAU’s Central Office of Research and Advancement Office.
“Our ambition must go beyond providing infrastructure to building institutions that can generate knowledge and attract global research funding. By strengthening the capacity of our universities, we can expand opportunities for our people and position Nigeria to compete more effectively in the global knowledge economy,” he famous.
Through these concepts and commitments, the Tunji Olowolafe Foundation continues to advance its broader ambition of strengthening the establishments, expertise and alternatives that help Nigeria’s long-term improvement. Its work throughout training, digital studying and analysis capability displays a sustained dedication to equipping establishments and the following technology with the instruments to compete and thrive in an more and more knowledge-driven world.
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