Academic shares expertise on visit to Nigeria

An academic from the University of Wolverhampton took his expertise overseas on a recent trip to Nigeria.

Dr Opeolu Ojo, Senior Lecturer in Biotechnology in the School of Sciences, was invited by the Obafemi Awolowo University and the charitable organisation, Bioscience Research Education and Advisory Centre (BREAC), to run a series of workshops on biotechnology for academics and researchers from across the country.

Dr Ojo visited universities and research institutions, promoting University of Wolverhampton research projects and identifying development opportunities.

He said:  “I delivered successful workshops to people who came from six geopolitical zones of Nigeria as well as from other African countries.  I met key officers from the universities I visited and forged some interesting alliances with academics who are keen to work with the University of Wolverhampton to deliver postgraduate programmes and to get involved with research projects.

“There are several opportunities which could be explored in Nigeria to expand the reach of the University and increase recruitment from this country.

"The University of Wolverhampton had a large Nigerian population, particularly for Master’s courses, before the recent changes in immigration rules which discouraged some students  to come to the UK.  Therefore, approaches such as Transnational Education (TNE) and strategic collaboration for research and training can be explored as a way of further tapping into the potential in Nigeria.”

Sharing work at Wolverhampton with academic staff members of the department at the University of Ibadan, currently one of the top 3 Universities in the Nigeria, led Dr Ojo to mentoring two young scientists who have expressed interests in PhD research at Wolverhampton and one of the scientists will be visiting Wolverhampton in 2019 to conduct some diabetes related studies.