Reps move to establish National Research Fund

The House of Representatives has commenced moves to establish a National Research and Innovation Development Fund to address funding gaps, strengthen research capacity and promote the commercialisation of indigenous innovations.

The proposed legislation also seeks to establish a National Council on Research and Innovation to coordinate research activities, support scientific discoveries and facilitate the conversion of research findings into marketable products and services.

Speaker of the House, Tajudeen Abbas, stated this on Thursday at a public hearing organised by the House Committee on Science and Technology on the National Research and Innovation Development Fund and National Council on Research and Innovation Bill, 2026, at the National Assembly, Abuja.

Represented by the Deputy House Leader, Abubakar Halims, Abbas said Nigeria could no longer afford to depend excessively on imported technologies and solutions to challenges its citizens had the intellectual capacity to address.

He observed that despite the country’s pool of talented researchers, innovative young people and skilled entrepreneurs, the absence of an effective system linking research to funding and industry had continued to limit the economic benefits of their work.

According to him, research activities in Nigeria often end with academic publications, while promising innovations struggle to attract funding and discoveries with commercial potential fail to progress beyond the laboratory.

“The challenge, therefore, is not simply to produce more research, but to build an ecosystem that connects research to funding, innovation to investment, and discoveries to industry,” the Speaker said.

Abbas said the public hearing was an opportunity to subject the proposed legislation to thorough scrutiny and ensure that its provisions addressed the country’s research and innovation challenges.

“The objective is not simply to defend the Bill as drafted, but to produce legislation that can fulfil its intended purpose,” he added.

Earlier, the Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology, Zakariya Zannah, said Nigeria had the human resources and intellectual capacity to drive research and innovation but lacked a dependable legal and institutional framework to finance, coordinate and commercialise research findings.

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He noted that the bill was designed to bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and their practical application in the marketplace.

Zannah urged stakeholders to scrutinise five key areas of the proposed legislation: governance and institutional structure, funding sources, grant administration and commercialisation, accountability mechanisms and potential implementation gaps.

On funding, he drew attention to the proposed 20 per cent contribution from the Nigerian Content Development Fund under Section 19 of the Bill, alongside government appropriations, grants and income from commercialisation.

He also highlighted the proposed 2.5 per cent cap on administrative expenditure under Section 21, urging stakeholders to examine its legal basis, adequacy and sustainability.

On grant administration, the committee chairman called for scrutiny of the competitive and peer-reviewed funding process provided under Section 34, as well as the intellectual property provisions in Section 37.

He further urged participants to examine the provisions on offences, penalties and legal proceedings to ensure that public resources were protected without discouraging legitimate research activities.

Zannah called on stakeholders to make specific, evidence-based submissions, identify drafting concerns and suggest alternative provisions where necessary.

“Let us give Nigeria a Fund and a Council that are well governed, sustainably financed and focused on turning research into jobs, products and prosperity,” he said.

The proposed Fund comes against the backdrop of longstanding concerns over inadequate research financing, weak links between universities and industry, and the limited commercialisation of locally developed technologies.

The public hearing brought together representatives of government, academia, research institutions, the private sector and the scientific and innovation community to examine the proposed legislation.