Why early career researchers find it difficult to attract foreign research grants – Don

A university don and Director, Directorate of Research, Innovation and Partnership (DRIP), Professor Ibrahim Ahmad Rufa’i, has explained why early career researchers in the country find it difficult to attract foreign grants for their research.

He explained that most of them fail to attract the grants not because their works are not good enough, but because they find it difficult to write attractive research proposals.

Professor Rufa’i was speaking on Wednesday at the ongoing three-day workshop organised by his Directorate to train early career researchers on ways of getting foreign grants held in Kano.

According to him, the workshop is aimed at strengthening the early career researchers with writing skills to develop their chances of securing foreign grants with the overall objective of improving Nigeria’s university system.

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Professor Rufa’i explained that, “Our target participants are the early career, that is, those within the first five years of their research careers, which includes PhD students and those who have it but received their certificates in the last five years. We also have those who have their master’s degree but have been engaged in productive research.

“The research environment is characterised by VUCA (vulnerability, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. This is to say that it is very difficult now to do research due to many competing demands. So, researchers find it difficult to do the research.

“We felt the need to develop the capacity of these researchers. We have invited 42 participants here physically, but we have granted virtual access to whosoever wants to join,” the don added.

He said though they have been organising a series of trainings before, this is the first time they are organising it for early career researchers.

One of the participants, Dr Farida Muhammad Shehu, from the Banking and Finance Department of BUK, said the workshop will sharpen their capacity on ways to improve their research for national development.

“It is not only about getting your research published to get promoted, but it is also about making your research impactful to national development. I am confident with this training, I will achieve that. I will even go back and teach my colleagues at my department,” she added.

Also, another participant, Dr Usman Muhammad Ibrahim, said he has learned a lot of things expected of him to do to attract the grants and promised to make good use of the knowledge acquired.

Daily Trust reports that the workshop was organised in partnership with the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and BUK’s African Centre of Excellence for Population Health and Policy (ACEPHAP).