It’s important universities, industries collaborate on research —Pat Utomi

Pat Utomi

A professor of Political Economy and entrepreneurship coach, Patrick Utomi, has harped on universities’ collaboration with the industries in problem-solving researches that can substantially take Nigeria and its people out of poverty.

He made the comments as a keynote speaker at an event to reopen the Centre for Research in Enterprise and Action in Management (CREM), in Lagos, recently.

He said: “Until such collaboration activities are encouraged and put to practice between the town and gown, it will be difficult for Nigerian economy to move forward appreciably.”

He added that business activities across fields of endeavours, including the government, require adequate research and innovations that are backed up with technology and in line with best global practices.

Speaking on the theme of the event, ‘Promoting Research, Learning and Innovation as key Drivers to Economic Growth,’ Utomi said that every business man and woman would need to always search for a better way of engagement in their operations so as to be able to satisfy the customers and maximise profit.

He added that though they might face one challenge or the other along the line, all they need to do is to invest in evidence-based research and be more innovative.

He, however, commended CREM for contributing significantly to knowledge acquisition, research and training of human capital, among others, within four years of its establishment, saying that “the efforts are already yielding positive results.”

In his opening remarks earlier, the chairman of CREM, Dr Godwin Nwabunka, said that Nigeria is a large market with many business opportunities, but only those with entrepreneurial and creative spirit could provide the products and services capable of satisfying the people’s needs to maximise profit and better the society.

He said that “a good research would generate right information, data and evidence that are needed either to start a new business or grow and develop the existing ones, irrespective of size; micro, small, medium or large scale in both the public and private sectors.”

He said most times funding is not actually the problem of growing business, but lack of knowledge and foresight to provide right products and services that meet people’s satisfaction.

In his presentation, the chief Operating Officer of CREM, Mr Clifford Onyeike, said the company would continue to contribute to societal-need research and development as well as the training of the human capital, among others.

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