PROMOTING INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP IN INFORMATION

							PROMOTING INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIP
  IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN NIGERIA.
                              BY
           CHIEMEKE, S. C. & UKAOHA, K. C.
              DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE,
            UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, BENIN CITY, NIGERIA.
                 e-mail: ukaohakc@computer.org


         Second Science with Africa CONFERENCE
            “Science, Innovation and Entrepreneurship”
              23 – 25 June 2010 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
                         ABSTRACT
It is becoming increasingly difficult for universities in Nigeria to go it
alone in terms of serving as a citadel of learning, coping with the huge
wage bill and competing with their peers in other parts of the world,
due to competitive, economic and other pressures. As a consequence,
universities in Nigeria are left with no option than to carry their
industrial partners along in terms of research and development through
the formation of partnerships for their mutual benefit. Since the
industries are established for profit making and the universities for
knowledge enhancement, such partnerships would help in spreading
the costs in terms of provision of knowledge and costs of research. This
paper discusses the various types of partnerships involving industries
and universities, the benefits derived and a possible model for the
working of such a partnership which could be adapted to other sectors
and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
                   INTRODUCTION
To create World-class leaders of the future;
universities (Public and Private) in Nigeria and
Africa need access to the following resources:
   •   Personnel (Faculty and Support)
   •   Infrastructure and Equipment
   •   Training and Professional Development
   •   Industry advisors and
   •   Other technology-based needs that are expensive to
       acquire
           INTRODUCTION contd..
In the current dispensation, universities are:
  – Experiencing low-funding below UNESCO-approved
    minimum
  – Budget constraints
  – Late release of allocations from Government
  – Increased staff overhead
    These reasons makes it imperative for universities to
    look beyond the Government for funding
            INTRODUCTION contd.
The 4 main strands of activity that universities
engage in where there is significant potential for
developing partnerships with Corporate Nigeria (as
the bigger industries are known in Nigeria ) are :-
–   Teaching and Learning
–   Research and Development
–   Innovation and Knowledge Transfer
–   Training and Retraining of students on Information
    Technology (IT) placements
           INTRODUCTION contd..
Understanding the concept of partnership means to think
of it as working together for mutual benefit such as:
    •Adding diversity
    •Bringing in new ideas
    •Bringing in new concepts
    •Bringing in new technologies and market access
    •Reduced spending by the individual partners
    compared to if they did the task on their own
    •Reduced risk of failure
    ASSETS OF INDUSTRIES AND UNIVERSITIES
The following are assets belonging to both parties in an
industry-university partnership:
 • Physical Assets/ Resources: laboratories, equipments
   and facilities
 • Human Resources: highly skilled and experienced
   staff
 • Other Knowledge Resources: information, database,
   libraries, processes, ideas, contacts, etc.
 • Financial Resources: own research funds or access to
   public funds.
 TYPES OF INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS
•Contract Research:
   University conducts research in an area where they
   have expertise but effort is focused and funded by
   industrial partner
•Collaborative Research:
   Where goals and contributions are as described by
   each partner
•Sponsored Research:
   Researchers put together proposals, which industry
   may then consider funding
TYPES OF INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS contd.
• Graduate Fellowships/ Studentships:
    Sponsorships of studentship, fully/partial, offers
    industries a foothold into emerging IT areas
• Student Projects and Placements:
    Placement schemes like the Industrial Training scheme
    coordinated by the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) in
    Nigeria
• Sponsored and Honorary Posts & Secondments:
    Academic secondment to industries and honorary posts
    or secondments by Universities to specific industrial
    researchers
TYPES OF INDUSTRY-UNIVERSITY PARTNERSHIPS contd..
• University Consultancy & Associated Commercial
  Services:
    Universities Academics devote part of their time to
    consultancy services for external customers
• Clubs and Networks:
    Clubs set up by a university or agency and Networks in
    form of research clubs
• Jobs:
    Securing jobs by IT graduates is also another area of
    partnership
FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING A UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP
•To create a partnership, the partners need to have a shared
vision on IT-related ideas or concepts which should address
the specific needs of all partners in the partnership.

•The major responsibility of IT/universities is to provide trained
manpower to meet the needs of industry/ professional sector.

•Interaction between industries and universities is vital for the
successful development of manpower.

•The key players in strengthening interaction between
computer science/ IT institution and industry are universities,
industries and government (via the NUC).
                     Government Assistance Policies to Industries                                          Government




                                                                                                               Regulation of
                           Curricula, Human Resources, Project, Students Training                              curricula, grants,
                                                                                                               teaching methods
                                                                                                               via the NUC


Industries
 Industries

                                                                                                    Universities


                           R & D, Staff exchanges Potential Employees, Networking, IT
                           Projects, etc.




                                                                                                         Enriched Curriculum
                                      Jobs, Technical Skills,
                                      Hands-on Experience




              Vast                                                                      IT &
              Financial                                                                 Computing
              chest                                                                     Students
FRAMEWORK FOR DEVELOPING A UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY PARTNERSHIP

• From our diagram, we showed that for a partnership to work
  effectively; it need inputs from:
• The Government (provision of conducive political
  environment; tax laws/ rebates; appropriate regulations to
  meet up with National IT policy and cooperation)
• Industries ( Interaction and exchanges with Universities;
  employment and training; Direct supervision/
  implementation of IT projects, patents and funding and
  research)
• Universities (Interaction and exchanges with Industries;
  Patents and Inventions; training; consultancies; research and
  development)
  BENEFITS OF IT-RELATED PARTNERSHIPS
                    BENEFITS FOR INDUSTRIES
• Thinking longer term by gaining an inside track on emerging trends and
  enabling technologies developed in universities
• Benefiting from new ideas and past experience
• Going global by linking up the global academic networks
• Outsourcing through saving costs and letting universities handle research
• Access to IT skills within universities that company staff lack
• Accessing a range of IT disciplines at once in a university
• Bringing additional financial resources to bear on research and thereby
  spreading costs
• Reducing risk by sharing costs, finding out what others are doing
• Complementing the company’s physical resource base
• Recruitment made easy
   BENEFITS OF IT-RELATED PARTNERSHIPS
                    BENEFITS FOR UNIVERSITIES
• Improving market awareness by gaining insights into the research problems or
  interests to industries
• Enriching teaching programs
• Maintaining research momentum in the IT sector
• Applying knowledge and skills to solving real business IT-related problems
• Learning new IT skills and techniques developed in the industry
• Learning new approaches to managing projects and how industry works
• Drawing on a wider range of private funding and access to public funds
  requiring industry collaboration
• Building on excellence and reputation
• Complementing the university’s resource base
• Sourcing job opportunities for IT graduates
        THE WAY FORWARD………….
•Industrial partners could directly build IT-Research
Laboratories for Universities; monitor and update the
installed facilities on a regular basis

•Interactive forums should be organized between
Universities, Industries and Government Regulators to
brainstorm on teaching methods and curriculum
development on a yearly basis and should be
mutually-exclusive
        THE WAY FORWARD………….
• Industrial partners in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa
  should organize forums where they showcase newer
  technological acquisitions to students and staffs of
  Universities to keep them abreast and influence
  their research direction.
• Government through her regulating agencies should
  from time to time encourage industry and University
  partners to develop their partnerships in line with
  her National IT policy
                     COST IMPLICATIONS?
•In terms of funding, industries should partake and be specific and direct in most
cases in order to help meet UNESCO minimal standards; what it means is that
industries could pick a project say, an IT-Research Laboratory, equip it with at
most 50 computers and the project cost is abut $1 million and the industry would
pay for and supervise the project directly
•Students should be trained on local development of business/ mobile software;
design and building of computer hardware in industry-equipped laboratories;
•Industrial partners could also set aside at least 2% of their annual budgets for
Research and Development and even 60% of their advert budgets because
investing in Universities is another better way of advertising presence and
achievements to leaders and technocrats of tomorrow
•In such cases, industries could directly license software in the range of $100,000
to $5million per annum for Universities and Industrial consortia could be formed
to share funding overhead and enhance more impact
                        CONCLUSION
The framework of an industry-university partnership in
IT; the overall benefits of such a partnership to both
industries and universities alike and the main goals of
such partnerships could be adapted to IT-related and non
IT-related sectors and even to other countries in Sub-
Saharan Africa
In the words of Late Felix Houphouet Boigny of Ivory Coast, “Africa missed the Industrial
 Revolution, we can’t afford to let the IT Revolution go by too.” Hence the need for all IT
   partners to collaborate and move Africa forward in IT, Research and Development.


THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND BEST WISHES………