The Federal Government has launched the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Prize, a new national award scheme designed to recognise and reward outstanding academic research, innovation and intellectual excellence across Nigeria’s tertiary institutions.
In a statement made available to the press, the Minister of Education, Dr Maruf Olatunji Alausa, said that he had inaugurated the National Laureate Prize Committee and charged it with providing the strategic direction, governance and integrity required for the initiative’s successful implementation.
The Minister said, the scheme forms part of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the education sector and is being jointly implemented by the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) and the Federal Ministry of Education.
Dr Alausa said an annual prize pool of approximately N365 million had been earmarked for different categories of outstanding academic work, including undergraduate dissertations with strong commercial potential, exceptional Master’s theses, and Doctoral theses with clear industrial and developmental applications.
He explained that Special Prizes would also be awarded for outstanding work in critical fields such as Engineering and Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Arts and Social Sciences, Agriculture, Law and Teaching Innovation, with some of these prizes named after distinguished Nigerians whose lives symbolise exceptional service and contribution to the nation.
Among these is the Dr Stella Adadevoh Prize for Medicine and Medical Innovation, honouring the physician whose professional sacrifice helped prevent the 2014 Ebola outbreak from becoming a national catastrophe.
The Minister described her legacy as a demonstration of the transformative power of knowledge, professionalism and service to humanity.
Dr Alausa said the credibility of the prize would depend fundamentally on the credibility of its selection process, stressing that the process would be transparent, competitive, merit-driven and insulated from political, institutional or personal influence.
“Excellence must be the determining factor,” he said, adding that participation and submission of academic entries would conform with the National Policy on the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, thereby strengthening the integrity, accessibility and long-term preservation of the country’s intellectual output.
The Minister explained that the initiative was not merely another awards programme but an instrument for reshaping national aspirations, stressing that Nigerian students should understand that there is honour in scholarship, opportunity in innovation and national recognition for intellectual excellence.
He said the Ministry wanted undergraduates developing commercially viable innovations, Master’s students investigating solutions to national problems, and doctoral researchers alike to know that the country was paying attention to their work and that a clear pathway existed from research to industrial application, enterprise creation and national development.
Dr Alausa noted that the most successful nations of the twenty-first century would not necessarily be those with the greatest natural resources, but those able to systematically transform knowledge into solutions, research into enterprise, and intellectual capital into economic and industrial value.
He said the Federal Government, under President Tinubu, remained committed to building an education system that develops the knowledge, skills, creativity and innovation required to drive the country’s economic transformation and global competitiveness, describing the Laureate Prize as another important step in that direction.
The Minister expressed confidence that the initiative would help build a Nigeria where excellence is recognised, scholarship is celebrated, innovation is rewarded, and the intellectual capacity of young Nigerians is deliberately harnessed for national development.
Further details on eligibility, submission guidelines and timelines for the maiden edition of the National Laureate Prize are expected to be released by the Committee in due course.
