NEW: COED RESEARCH FAIR EXHIBITION 2021
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Call for Papers
CREDIIIT CALENDAR OF EVENTS FOR 2021/2022
MISSION STATEMENT: To cultivate transformational educational leadership through conducting research development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training which enhances learning and overall development.
INTRODUCTION
In its aim of becoming a solution provider through research development, incubation, innovation and in-house training, Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin established a Research Centre: Centre for Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training – CREDIIIT. The Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training Centre provides a framework for the development of competitive, innovative and quality multidisciplinary research culture across Departments and Schools of the College for quantitative and qualitative improvements in research performance and output as well as to become a leader in science-oriented development, human capital development, advanced arts creativities, cutting-edge technologies and all knowledge boundaries.
The scope of the Centre is to assist the College to maintain its renowned status in teaching and research at local, national and international levels. The Centre is expected to cover the promotion and support of all original research and innovation; to train, create and advance knowledge that will improve the quality of life through the discovery, incubation, dissemination and use of research in various disciplines in line with the vision and mission of College of Education, Ilorin.
The creation of the Centre is borne out of the quest to integrate lecturers and students who are scattered across the various Schools and Departments to help nurture novel research and innovations and to provide infrastructure and support to advance problem-solving researches. Students will be encouraged to participate in the new Centre’s multidisciplinary research, development, incubation and innovation programs as this will instils in them the ability to take leadership in educating the next generation of leaders and be more focused on improving the quality of education through research. This Centre is expected to be in partnership and collaboration with recognised institutions, high tech companies, government and its agencies, non-governmental organisations, international organisations and the local communities.
OBJECTIVES
The Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training Centre, College of Education, Ilorin will serve as a framework for stakeholders, management, academic staff and students on their roles and responsibilities in the research development, incubation, innovation and in-house training acculturation process. Accordingly, the objectives of this Centre are to:
- provide strategic vision and direction for original research development; incubation and innovation; and in-house training that will guide the development and implementation of programmes to educate the next generation of leaders who are focused on improving the quality of education nationwide.
- empower staff and students to cultivate creative and innovative sustainable research.
- contribute to the College’s strategic educational and research missions through creating synergies between research, teaching and learning.
- enhance staff and students research collaboration and participation between disciplines and interdisciplinary within the College community, with other tertiary institutions (national and international), firms and the society.
- provide the infrastructure that will enhance research skills and expand networking capacity for both academic staff and students.
- coordinate the translation of research findings within the College to tangible products that can solve societal and global issues and enhance the image of College of Education Ilorin positively.
- coordinate and promote research discoveries, inventions, innovations, patenting and commercialization of research outputs, for the benefit of the researcher, the College, and the wider community.
- undertake in-house training programmes. E.g. seminars and workshops to improve staff and students’ research and development performance.
- coordinate the editorial review and production of main College`s journals when established.
- source and disseminate information on local, national and international research grants and fellowships to the College community.
- collating research performance data and establishing information management systems for internal and external assessment and compliance.
- ensuring the establishment of research outputs management and archival systems that allow access and further dissemination of College research findings.
- engaging at a high level, local and external stakeholders for purposes of sourcing research funding, sourcing research projects, driving the innovation process and marketing the College’s research outputs and competencies.
- ensuring the development and implementation of effective funding policy and administer research funds from internal and external sources available in the College.
- boost efforts in generating revenue for the College
- ensuring central support and central coordination of the autonomous research management and administration in the Departments, Schools and Administrative Units with the College.
Sub-Units of CREDIIIT
The Centre has the following sub-units:
(i) Research and Development Unit
- The unit is responsible for initiating research development and nurse it in any identified areas of urgency to solve issues for the College and the larger society.
- The unit also maintains a digital archive of all research development and incubation efforts of academic staff and students in the College. As the CREDIIIT office grows and becomes strengthened, the unit will further see to Research Chairs, Visiting Fellows and Collaborative research partners.
- Source and disseminate information on local, national and international research grants and fellowships to the College community.
- The unit shall create, maintain and be responsible as a custodian of the databases regarding data obtained from all relevant bodies. It shall administer the distribution of such data accordingly.
- This unit will enhance the publications programme of the College by floating two (2) College journals to start with; one Science-based journal; and a Humanities-based journal. Through these journals, the College will position itself strategically to raise its research publication profile, thereby greatly increasing its potential to be visible to the international scholarly community. The journal publications shall be funded by TETFund.
(ii) In-House Training Unit
This unit shall:
- Administer all local, national (e.g. TETFund Research Grant, TETFund Conference Grant, TETFund Academic Training Grant etc) and international research grants and fellowships available to the College.
- Organize workshops for members of staff of the College on proposal writing/development and networking for grants/fellowships and training of staff on funding opportunity identification.
- Review of research policies.
- See to the establishment of the Research Fund and Internal approval funding system.
- Review of funding proposals for compliance and Intellectual Property.
- Review of funding policies, funding strategies and funding guidelines.
- The unit will undertake training e.g. seminars and workshops to improve individual and organizational performance. It will organize continuing professional development courses and capacity building of the College`s members of staff in computer literacy, data processing, computer software applications (e.g. SPSS, Excel, Stata, Endnote etc) to enhance their research capabilities.
(iii) Incubation and Innovation Development Unit
The unit shall coordinate the translation of research and innovation development findings within the College to tangible products that can solve societal and global problems. It shall also coordinate research discoveries and inventions, patenting and commercialization of research products. Among other things, it shall perform the following:
- Help in the proper use of local resources by providing guidance, assistance, education and training to the prospective researcher or innovators.
- Collection of literature and exhibition on appropriate technology for small and medium scale industries.
- Collection of small-scale agricultural processing and farm machinery. fabrication, testing and promotion of equipment and machinery. Assemblage and production of industrial and agricultural packages for research and upgrading of indigenous technologies. The workshops and laboratories situated in the School of Vocational and Technical Education will need to be expanded and upgraded to fulfil the above objectives.
- To improve the research capacity and output of the College, the Directorate of Centre for Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training will introduce “COED, Ilorin Research Fair”. The event can be biennial and:
- Provide the opportunity for research and creative activity community in the College to demonstrate the diversity of its scope.
- Help staff members and students to develop new linkages with colleagues across different disciplines in the College.
- Provide a forum for academic members of staff and their students to showcase findings on new research and innovations.
- Help in building necessary linkages between COE, Ilorin and relevant industries as well as show the larger society the innovations taking place at the College of Education, Ilorin.
- Encourage staff and students to initiate sellable products/ideas from locally sourced materials.
COORDINATION OF THE AUTONOMOUS RESEARCH MANAGEMENT AND ADMINISTRATION IN THE DEPARTMENTS, SCHOOLS AND ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS:
CREDIIIT will constitute Research Statutory Committees on research matters at the Departmental and Schools levels. Importantly, for supporting its activities and coordinating its work across the College, the Directorate will have an optimally sized but highly trained team in the Directorate of College Centre for Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training. The Deans of Schools, Heads of Department, Directors of Directorates and Heads of Administrative Units will be responsible for the supervision and managing of research output among their staff. These College officers will work closely with the CREDIIIT for the overall realization of excellent research development, incubation and innovation output.
- Departmental Research Committee (DRC): This shall comprise of a research-minded individual at each of the Departments.
- School Research Committee (SRC): This shall comprise of one member each per department in a School and two representatives of the School Board.
- College Research Committee (CRC): The College Research Committee will be chaired by the Provost and has as members, Deputy Provost Academic; Director, College Centre for Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training; Schools’ Research Committee Chairpersons; the College Librarian/ Representative; Director of Academic Planning and the Administrative Secretary, Centre for Research, Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training to serve as Secretary.
Funding
The Centre shall obtain its fund from four categories of sources:
- Annual Research development and incubation fees from all College of Education Ilorin students.
- Utilize fund dedicated to research in the College such as fund from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund).
- Request for a special fund from Kwara State Government on Research Development, Incubation, Innovation and In-House Training. In other words, the Centre through the College Management shall make the State government finance researches that will promote the advancement of Kwara State.
- Fund from National and International agencies that collaborate with the Centre. It includes Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Ministries and donations from individual sponsors.
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