The Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, has promised to recognize outstanding doctoral theses from the institution.
The Senate of the university, which took the decision, said the initiative would help to promote and sustain quality research and scholarship.
FUNAAB is one of the institutions that recently won the Nigerian Universities Doctoral Theses Awards.
A thesis from the university entitled, “Genetic Variation, Correlation Studies and Multi-Locational Performance of Lowland NERICA Rice,” by Ogunbayo Ayoni, of the Department of Plant Breeding and Seed Technology, won the prize in agriculture.
The National Universities Commission organised the awards.
The Dean, Postgraduate School at FUNAAB, Prof. Ololade Enikuomehin, while unveiling the university plan, said the initiative was in line with the NUC move to promote scholarship in the country.
He said, “For us, the initiative would help us fit into our desire to becoming a world-class university. That is very relevant to our immediate community and the constituency we represent on a larger scale. I see it as helping us to showcase more, the outcome of our postgraduate research and it would help an average postgraduate student to have that sense of purpose that there is something to look up to, especially, if there is a prize to win.”
He added that the move would motivate postgraduate students and their supervisors to contribute more in solving societal problems.
The bases of the annual award, he further said, would be on contribution to knowledge, focus, innovation, relevance to the Nigerian economy and development, good command of language and orderly presentation of findings.
A lecturer in the College of Animal Science and Livestock Production had four ago won the award.
