Nigeria’s best doctoral research will receive ₦100 million under a new Federal Government(FG) academic award scheme unveiled in Abuja, as the government sets aside ₦365 million every year to reward research and innovation in tertiary institutions.
The Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize will also give ₦50 million to the best Master’s thesis and ₦35 million to the best undergraduate dissertation, with six other excellence prizes worth ₦30 million each.
The awards will cover universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education. The Federal Ministry of Education said the scheme is intended to recognise academic work that can have commercial, industrial or developmental use.
Education Minister, Tunji Alausa, unveiled the initiative on Wednesday. The development was revealed by the Director, Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, Boriowo Folasade in a press statement.
The size of the individual awards places doctoral research at the top of the prize structure, with the ₦100 million award worth twice the amount set aside for the best Master’s thesis.
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Alausa said Nigeria had considerable intellectual capacity, but research and innovation needed greater recognition and support to achieve national impact.
“Nigeria has exceptional intellectual capacity across our universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and colleges of education, but outstanding research and innovations require greater recognition and support to achieve national impact,” Alausa said.
The government said the initiative will support research commercialisation and help connect academic work with industry and national development.
Six fields share ₦180m in excellence prizes
Six National Laureate Excellence Awards will receive ₦30 million each under the annual scheme.
The categories are Medicine and Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Agriculture, Law, Arts and Social Sciences, and Teaching Innovation.
The arrangement gives each of the six fields an equal prize allocation, separate from the ₦35 million undergraduate, ₦50 million Master’s and ₦100 million doctoral awards.
The ministry said it would recognise “exceptional undergraduate dissertations with commercial potential, outstanding Master’s theses and Doctoral research with industrial or developmental applications” across the six areas.
A separate ₦30 million Dr Stella Adadevoh Prize for Medicine and Medical Innovation will also be presented.
The prize is named after the late Nigerian physician, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, who was credited with helping to curb the spread of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Nigeria.
Adadevoh placed the index case, Patrick Sawyer, in quarantine despite pressure from the Liberian government.
The ministry said the wider programme would “promote research commercialisation, preserve Nigeria’s intellectual output and strengthen the connection between tertiary education, industry and national development.”
The awards therefore cover both academic achievement and research with possible practical use. Undergraduate work can qualify through commercial potential, Master’s research through industrial applications and doctoral work through industrial or developmental applications.
November ceremony set after committee work
The prize structure follows the Federal Government’s earlier establishment of the National Laureate Programme.
In June, Alausa inaugurated the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Committee in Abuja and gave it responsibility for developing transparent eligibility criteria, communicating guidelines to tertiary institutions and concluding the selection process ahead of the inaugural National Laureate Awards scheduled for November 2026.
At the inauguration, Alausa described the programme as “a deliberate investment in Nigeria’s young intellectual capital.”
“It is intended to celebrate knowledge, innovation, creativity and research-driven development while strengthening the country’s research commercialisation ecosystem,” he said.
The committee is chaired by the President of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Emeritus Prof. Abubakar Sambo.
Its responsibilities include developing award criteria, overseeing an independent adjudication process, managing the annual prize fund and ensuring the credibility of the programme.
The Federal Government said the initiative was established in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
Alausa said the government wants academic excellence to receive greater national recognition and wants researchers to produce solutions capable of addressing Nigeria’s developmental challenges.
The minister also said the country’s tertiary institutions had produced significant intellectual work, but outstanding research required recognition and support to achieve national impact.
The programme will therefore cover research from undergraduate level through doctoral studies, with the largest individual award reserved for doctoral work.
The government said it also wants research produced in Nigeria to be preserved and to have a clearer route into innovation, enterprise and national development.
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