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11th Valedictory Lecture By Obinna Nwodim
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- Published: 26 April 2018
11th Valedictory Lecture
Researchers Should Capitalise Knowledge For National Dev ~Willie Abbey
By Obinna Nwodim
Ace Professor of Biochemistry, Bene Willie Abbey, has strongly advised researchers to approach their job as a serious enterprise that can make meaningful contributions to national development. They could do so by mobilising critical resources from national and international grants that abound both at the national and global levels.
Professor Willie Abbey gave the advice while delivering the 11th Valedictory Lecture of the University of Port Harcourt at the Ebitimi Banigo Auditorium, University Park on Thursday, January 18, 2018.
The long-serving Biochemist whose thought-provoking Valedictory Lecture was entitled, Research and Development: Key to Sustainable Development, stressed the importance of research in global university rankings, as well as the emergence of the entrepreneurial university system. She recommended that more functional Professorial Chairs should be established and manned by serious-minded academics to promote research and scholarship in the University.
“The new paradigm in academic progression should be followed: 'Patent, Publish and Produce'. New discoveries, knowledge and technologies should be patented, then published in globally recognised high-impact journals. With this, the University will achieve web visibility and high citation index, monographs, field operations manuals and books, etc can be published,” the Valedictory Lecturer recommended.
Professor Abbey who once occupied the now defunct office of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development), described research and development as change agents that leads to sustainable development of universities and society. She further described R&D as critical keys that open valuable doors for greater collaborative opportunities, which in turn secures the future of universities that wish to be reckoned with on the entrepreneurship platform.
In his remarks, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ndowa Lale, described Professor Willie Abbey as a thorough-bred academic who contributed immensely to the development of the University of Port Harcourt and the educational system in a sustained manner. He recalled Professor Willie Abbey's quality research and mentorship activities in the University, assuring the retiring academic that her numerous contributions to the University and the educational sector would be in permanent remembrance.
