Flagrant display of arrogance by Nigerian academicians is chiefly responsible for their inability to win international research grants, a world-rated Scholar, Prof. Olumide Longe has declared.
Prof Longe made the declaration on Monday, August 15, 2022, while presenting a paper titled: “The Psychology of a Winning Grant Proposal Writer” at a seminar organized by the Department of Computer Sciences, Chrisland University, Abeokuta.
The Don, a recipient of several national and international awards and recognitions including being a recipient of the prestigious Fulbright SIR Fellowship to the United States of America and the Heidelberg Nobel Laureate Forum Fellowship in Germany, is acclaimed to be the first known Nigerian academia to focus doctoral research on cyber security within the Nigerian societal, institutional and global context.
His research works are believed to have been cited on Google Scholar over 2,000 times and others quoted globally over 10,000 times.
The celebrated researcher also highlighted other deep-rooted issues relating to non-utilization of the lecturers’ full intellectual capacity to include, including lack of creativity, in-fighting, and unwillingness to collaborate with their colleagues in their research endeavours.
In a 62-page slide, Prof Longe articulated what he called the winning strategies to become successful in writing grant proposals.
His words: “The business of grants is the issue of creativity. And this is not rocket science. In order to win grants, you must first pocket the toga of arrogance which is very rampant within academia.
“You must start to build your uniqueness. You must realize that you can’t be me and I can’t be you. Rather than be engaged in competing against one another, we should start to complement one another.
“You must use your creativity and innovations to build a multi-disciplinary approach to be inventors of new theories and ideas that would proffer solutions to the immediate problems confronting humanity.
“We must stop building Silos and the in-fighting and division that have not helped anybody. Real progress will come when Deans and HODs form themselves into research groups to develop grants winning proposals based on comparative advantages”
Prof Longe has tough words for those he labelled “self-centered, selfish and egocentric academics whose stock in trade is their penchant for hiding knowledge, which ultimately profits no one in the final analysis.
Prof Longe is currently Dean, Faculty of Computational Sciences and Informatics at the Academic City University College, Accra.
In her opening remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Chinedum Peace Babalola, FAS, spoke glowingly of the Guest Speaker, commending him for representing Nigeria globally through his several research endeavours.
Prof Babalola advised the cream of the University’s academia to latch in on the opportunity of the seminar to ginger their creativity for self-development by habitually writing research proposals and publishing in reputable international journals.
Also speaking, the Head, the Department of Computer Sciences, Prof Isaac Odun-Ayo disclosed that the University runs courses like Computer Sciences, Cyber Security, and Software Management which he noted are upscale and targeted at training young ones and bringing them to international relevance.
