Assessment of lecturer’s access to research grants in Nigerian universities: Impact on knowledge creation and dissemination

Abstract

This study evaluated lecturers’ access to research grants in Nigerian Universities and its impact on knowledge creation and dissemination. Descriptive survey design was adopted by the researchers. A sample of 630 senior lecturers constituting 13% of a population of 5,218 senior lecturers in three universities in their study area participated in the study. The respondents were drawn through purposive sampling techniques. The study was based on four research questions. Data for the study was gathered through a 22-item questionnaire. The instrument was validated and tested for reliability using Cronbach Alpha with a reliability index of 0.87. Data collected were analyzed using means, standard deviation and a nonparametric measure of rank correlation. Results indicated that academic research are self-funded or basically self-motivated adventures by lecturers in Nigeria, other sources of research funding are governmental intervention agencies, foreign donor’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and professional associations. It was revealed that 88.77% of the population admitted that they had never conducted a study funded via research grant in their host institutions. It was found that lecturer faces challenges in accessing research due to poor research grant writing skills, inability to develop and justify fundable budgets, lack of information on research grants, politicization of proposal reviewer team for approval, inability to meet the time frame for fulfilling the requirements for research grants, difficulty in the retirement process for research grant, inability to meet eligibility criteria, lack of interest in writing for a research grant and inability to write acceptable proposals, and stringent conditions attached to research grants. It was also found that inability to access grants dampen lecturers motivation for knowledge creation and dissemination leading to lower standard of education and poor innovation. The study concludes and recommends that management of Nigerian universities and relevant stakeholders should provide enabling environment and accessible funding opportunities for lecturers by aptly identifying and disseminating information for accessing research grants.