UZ Don Seeks Partnership with Covenant University Researchers

University of Zululand Partner
with Covenant University Researchers

A foremost scholar and renowned researcher, Professor Matthew Adigun of the University of Zululand, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa has visited the Department of Computer and Information Sciences (CIS), Covenant University on a mission to get collaborative partners to execute his research work.

Professor Adigun said this on Thursday, July 4, 2013 at the end of a three-day interactive session with Postgraduate students and Senior Faculty in the CIS Department of Covenant University.

Professor Adigun, who also serves as the Head of Department, Computer Science at the University of Zululand, said he was at Covenant University with the sole aim of incorporating collaborators into the research group that he leads.

According to him, the scope of the research was wide enough to accommodate the areas of expertise of the researchers available at the Department of CIS, which ultimately would form the bedrock for further international collaboration with University of Zululand.

In addition, Professor Adigun said he wanted to use the occasion to help the young and upcoming researchers understand how to access research grants through their proposals. He said any research that fails to meet the indices of job creation, commercial values, environmental impact, investment potentials and scientific and technological merit would be difficult to get funding.

He believed that the partnership would be a huge success because, some common ground have been established and he has found areas that matched the interest of the researchers available in the region of engineering, service oriented, architecture in mobile grid.

On the possibility of a full partnership coming on stream between University of Zululand and Covenant University, the erudite scholar noted that the lack of enthusiasm from his University was a major challenge.

“This Department has submitted an MoU to my Department in the University of Zululand, which have not been processed and it would be my privilege to go and drive that to make sure we put that into operation.

“In fact, we should go ahead with it so that we can use this collaboration we are starting as the first test of that particular MoU. In our university, no MoU is signed without any established collaborative activities that are defined for a particular period. If you do not have that, the University is not likely to accept that kind of MoU.”

“But we already have a collaboration going, so what we need to do now is to formalize the relationship using the MoU that has been proposed by the Department of CIS,” he enthused.

Professor Adigun said Covenant University has not relented in her very strong drive to make sure that a research culture becomes synonymous with the University. “Any university that is not active in research, as Covenant University is, actually is not fit to be a university,” he posited.

He decried the casual attitude of successive governments in Nigeria to the issue of research. “Usually, in the developing and developed world you must have a research council that drives research at the government level. They must be responsible to the appropriate government ministry,” he stated.

He averred that until government can come fully on board to pursue and sponsor research, then the industry would not be willing to match them naira for naira and dollar for dollar.

The interactive session had in attendance the Head, Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Dr. Nicholas Omoregbe, Faculty and Postgraduate students of the Department.