By Martin Ekpeke
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said it created the Department of Research and Development at the Commission to consolidate all the research activities in the country’s telecom industry.
This disclosure is contained in a remark by Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of NCC at the inauguration of the inter-agency committee for the evaluation of 2017 research proposals from the academia at the NCC’s Corporate headquarter in Abuja.
“Going forward, research activities will attract priority attention at the Nigerian Communications Commission,” Danbatta declared.
He said the creation of the department becomes very necessary because telecommunications is a super infrastructure industry that addresses the concerns of other industries or put differently that facilitates growth and development of other industries. “Our goal for the establishment of Research and development department at NCC is to be able to use this intervention to address industry problems as well as some other societal issues that need urgent attention,” he added.
The former University lecturer noted that the Commission is very passionate about students getting involved in implementing proposals and being given the opportunity to contribute to develop new solutions for the telecommunications sector.
Meanwhile, the Commission has set requirements that research proposal must meet before it can be considered. They include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Clear statement and explanation of the problem.
- Proposed solution to the problem
- Clear relevance to the telecommunication industry
- Evidence of local realization up to prototype
- Cost reasonableness (cost of actualizing the idea excluding furniture and allowances)
- Schedule of project organization
- Coherent presentation/packaging of concept; and
- Integration of research with education (capacity building of students via the implementation of the project in the institution).