To further its social intervention efforts on education in Nigeria, Grooming Centre, a micro finance institution, has again announced N20 million research grants to be given this year to a total of 100 undergraduate and 50 postgraduate final year students in any of the public and private universities in the country.
The non-refundable annual grants with this year’s fifth edition, are to support the research projects of the intended beneficiaries without gender, age, ethnic, political, religion or family financial status considerations.
The Head of Project, Grooming Centre Nigeria, Mr Egulefu Chikezie, made this disclosure on Tuesday, at a news conference to officially announce the commencement of submission of entries for this year’s edition of the grants at the corporate headquarters of the organisation in Lagos.
He said the company had given out a sum of N39.2 million under the scheme in the last four years to a total of 254 beneficiaries nationwide.
Chikezie explained that the grant is designed to encourage and boost evidence-based research activities and knowledge among tertiary school students in critical economic areas that include microfinance, rural development, inclusive finance, social enterprise, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), technological development, women in development and other areas that aimed at impacting the economy and lifting the people out of poverty.
He said the bank believes that so many tertiary school students in the country would want to carry out research works on problems-solved issues but oftentimes hindered by lack of funds or mentorship, hence the grants to assist them.
Chikezie said while each of the 50 postgraduate potential beneficiaries who could come from any part of the country and university or polytechnic would get a sum of N200, 000, their undergraduate counterparts are expected to get N100,000 each.
He said the company raised the grants to this amount two years ago but could not get enough suitable applicants to benefit from the gesture.
He said the submission of entries which would be done strictly online through a dedicated portal with the address given as www.groominggrant.org would be opened on June 26 and to last till August 18, after which successful applicants would receive their grants.
He emphasised that the research study with the grants being managed by the Center for Research in Enterprise and Action in Management (CREM), must focus on issues relevant to the Nigerian context, practical, innovative and capable of promoting any of the already identified areas of interest in the Nigerian space.
Giving more insight into the scheme, Chief Operating Officer, CREM, Mr Clifford Onyeike, said aside from that the research works must show a high level of originality and convincing target results and data-driven, applicants must have to, among others submit their research concept of between 10 and 25 pages and also be ready to submit final soft copies of their projects when completed.
He said all the applications would be evaluated by an independent panel of jurists, adding that other details of the research grants and applications are available on the company website.
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