Environment sector requires multi-disciplinary research collaborations —Coker

There is an urgent need for multi-disciplinary research collaborations among various fields of engineering, medicine, public and environmental health, social sciences and so on, because it is becoming obvious that nobody has the monopoly of the solution. The field of environment is a multi-disciplinary one, and the problems we are grappling with are multi-faceted.

This was the submission of a professor of Biomedical and Environmental Health Engineering, and director of Nigeria Network for Action and Awareness for Environmental Health (NINAAFEH), Professor Akinwale Coker, who was guest lecturer at the February edition of the Distinguished Lecture Series of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Ibadan.

In his lecture titled, “Engineering for sustainable human and environmental health: Role of multidisciplinary research collaboration,” Professor Coker pointed out that flooding, climate change and energy problems all require multidisciplinary research collaborations.  “It is a multidisciplinary approach that can give us solutions,” he said.

According to the director of NINAFEH, multidisciplinary research collaborations increase the visibility of research outputs and deliverables through dissemination actions on all sides of the collaborators.

As an example of multidisciplinary research collaboration in action, he cited the case of the Biomedical Engineering degree programme in the University of Ibadan which commenced recently. “The Biomedical Engineering research team at UI consists of academic staff trained under the framework grant drawn from different faculties to develop Biomedical Engineering curriculum and also teach Biomedical Engineering courses.”

He added that the outcomes of the collaboration in Biomedical Engineering included baby warmer, needle disposal device for use in low-resource settings and phototherapy lamp.

Earlier in the programme, the Acting Head of the Environmental Health Sciences Department, Dr OladapoOkareh, noted that the department’s distinguished lecture series had become a much-anticipated event in the university community that highlights significant developments and issues in environmental health and allied fields.