The Centre for Undergraduate Research Fund, University of Abuja has awarded N1.7 million grants to six students of the institution.

Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, disclosed this during the second undergraduate research day with the theme “Promoting National development through research,” in Abuja on Thursday.

He said the grant was to assist the students in developing solutions to national problems.

According to him, government, parents and industry must look up to universities to solve problems.

The Vice-Chancellor said: “Our goal is to ensure that whatever we do as research, the industry will pick it up and develop it further for the betterment of the society.

“Research is about finding solutions to national problems. We want their mind to be set up in such a way that every day they think about bringing change to society.

“We want to also raise awareness that universities have so much to contribute to our world.”

He urged other universities to emulate the University of Abuja by having centres of undergraduate research.

The vice-chancellor admonished the students to use their brains to develop Nigeria, as against using it for internet fraud.

“We have turned opportunities (like technology) to develop our nation into corruption, into fraud.

What we need is to turn this brain into positivity for Nigeria to ensure that this nation takes its rightful place in the comity of nation. This nation must take its place in the comity of nation; nobody will do it for us,” he added.

Director of the centre, Dr Taibat Atoyebi, said 28 applications were received from students out of which the best six were chosen.

He said the institution would continue to mentor and monitor the students until the final research output is out.

Source: The Nations newspaper