Features of Academia-Industry Interactions in Nigeria from the Perspective of Manufacturing Firms
John Olatunji Adeoti
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research , NigeriaFoluso Adeyinka
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research , NigeriaKolade Odekunle
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research , NigeriaAbstract
The contribution of academia to economic development depends on the extent to which firms are able to employ the knowledge they generate. This paper draws from the report of a survey of Nigerian manufacturing firms aimed at ascertaining the level and scope of firms’ interaction with the academia comprising of universities and public research institutes, and their implications for building local technological capability. The results of the study showed that while firms have used existing production processes to manufacture products that are new to Nigeria, R&D capability is still relatively weak. The academia took the least position in the perception of firms as source of knowledge that had resulted in new projects or completion of existing innovative projects. Firms generally perceive the quality of R&D in the universities and research institutes to be low, and hence depend largely on their limited in-house R&D. It thus follows that building local technological capability would require raising the quality of R&D in universities and research institutes, and active promotion of collaborative R&D projects between firms and universities/research institutes.
Keywords:
Academia-industry interaction, R&D, manu- facturing, NigeriaSupporting Agencies:
The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, the study under the Research on Knowledge Systems (RoKS) programmeReferences
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Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
