The West and Central African Research Education Network (WACREN) has called for National policy, governance, and institutional framework to support the deployment of open science in Nigerian Higher Institutions.
The WACREN Chief Strategy Officer, Omo Oaiya, stated this in Abuja on Monday during the Libsense National Workshop focused on priority setting and capacity building for University leadership, Librarians, and University ICT Directors.
According to him, all is now set to kick start the implementation of Open Science in Nigeria at the National level and across Universities in the country.
He called for reform in research approaches emphasizing the crucial need for culture adaptation that links academic research to the immediate needs of their environment.
The WACREN Chief stated that early career researchers drawn from various Nigerian Universities along with their counterparts developed advocacy reports creating further awareness of open science and the need for research communities to publish their research works rather than giving them out to commercial publishers.
“Research is to inform National development and does not have to be linked to the intent of commercial publishers, there is an advocacy report produced by early career researchers on this, and we have formed an advocacy group on this here in Nigeria that will make advocacy on this.
“ Today’s workshop was organized to create an implementation plan, we have worked on forming the group on advocacy to campuses on open science.”
Oaiya disclosed that WACREN is showcasing Nigeria as one of the leading countries in the West African region hence the participation of other researchers from Ghana and other parts of the region at the workshop.
“So we brought researchers together here in Abuja to see how it is done here, the National Informant Institute of Japan has an infrastructure solution that we believe can solve the problem.
“Through the conversations with the Committee of Vice Chancellors, Association of ICT Directors and Librarians, we have deliberated on institutionalizing open science on campuses because that is where the impact lies again, we have made a lot of impact in that area there has been creation on what is common data method scheme.”
The WACREN Chief identified research data management and information sharing capacity as major deficit areas universities are facing, he said that higher institutions in the region lack sufficient capacity and ability to coordinate information sharing on research on a national basis.
“Research data management is an area universities do not have sufficient capacity and ability to coordinate on a national basis, all of these activities are being funded and supported by Foreign Common Wealth Development office of the UK Government.”
Oaiya hinted that the Nigerian community has successfully created plans mitigating against the challenges of data research adding that Open science works best on policies and national levels to create common objectives and have the same stakeholders.
“WACREN has been promoting open science across Africa and in Nigeria with our partners such as the National Universities Commission, Committee of Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, and Tertiary Education Trust Fund.”
Speaking on enhancing the practice of Open Science in Nigeria, WACREN Partner, Executive Director, Confederation of Open Access Repository, Kathleen Shearer said to institutionalize open science in Nigeria, there is a need to adopt formal policies and proper infrastructure needs to be invested in to convince researchers to adopt the system and record progress in their researches.
“Open science will have a transformative impact on research and improve the quality of research and make it available to all Nigerians but there has to be a formal policy introduced either at the national level or institutional level.”
Dr Fatimah Jibril Abduldayan, an Early Researcher at the Federal University of Technology, Minna Niger State said Nigeria needs to begin policy formulation and prioritize change in research culture.
“We need to start a conversation on research assessment so that Nigerian Institutions can fit in properly into the general open science framework in the world.” Dr Abduldayan added.
Dr Dominic Agyei Dankwah, University of Health and Allied Sciences, acknowledged that Nigeria is ahead of Ghana in terms of policy and awareness creation on open science research.
“WACREN has brought us together, the Librarians, research administrators, and early researchers it is a good platform to understand the barriers and the opportunities ahead of all of us.
“From the workshop, I can see that Nigeria is ahead of us in Ghana in terms of policy and awareness creation, we can learn from that,” he added.
Secretary General, Committee of the Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, CVCNU, Prof. Yakubu Ochefu in the opening remark said the workshop was an opportunity to hear a voice that is coming from practitioners and operators at the level. of open research and infrastructure initiatives.
“An Avenue for feedback. At the level of the committee of Vice-chancellors, we are very anxious about how far, what are the challenges, what can Vice Chancellors do to support you, and how can we put a plan of action together so that we can be on one page,” he said.
According to him, the CVCNU is partnering with the Tertiary Education Trust Fund to help deliver the Tertiary Educational Research Repository project called TERAS.
“And what TERAS has done is to put nearly two billion pages of research output from Nigerian universities into a database. We have never had that before where B.A., M.Sc, and Ph.D. projects end up on the shelves of your library or department.
“What TERAS has done is to put all of that into one database so that anybody can access the internet, go out there and search that project, and see how you can add value to the plethora of challenges that we have in Nigeria or to extend the boundaries of knowledge in Nigeria,” he added.
The Monday Libsense National Workshop on priority setting and capacity building for University leadership, Librarians, and University ICT Directors is a prelude to the main WACREN Workshop coming up between 7 and 8 March 2024 in Abuja.
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