The Federal Government has inaugurated the Tertiary Institutions National Laureate Committee and announced an annual research prize programme worth about ₦365 million for outstanding Nigerian students in tertiary institutions.
The committee was inaugurated on Monday by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, at the Digital Resource Centre of the Universal Basic Education Commission in Abuja.
According to the minister, the committee will oversee the implementation of the National Laureate Programme, an initiative aimed at promoting academic excellence, innovation and research commercialisation across accredited post-secondary and tertiary institutions in Nigeria.
Alausa said the programme was designed to reposition scholarship and scientific achievement as priorities of national development. He added that the initiative would encourage young Nigerians to pursue research capable of addressing real-world challenges, creating new industries and improving the country’s global competitiveness.
He said Nigeria must deliberately reward intellectual achievement if it hopes to build a strong knowledge-based economy, noting that the future prosperity of nations would increasingly depend on their ability to convert knowledge into economic value.
The minister also said the programme was intended to provide a national platform for recognising creativity, scholarship, invention and commercially viable research, especially at a time when public attention is often driven by social media culture.
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The inaugural National Laureate Awards are scheduled for November 2026. The awards will recognise outstanding undergraduate dissertations, master’s theses and doctoral theses, as well as winners in six thematic excellence categories: Medicine and Health Sciences, Engineering and Technology, Agriculture, Law, Arts and Social Sciences, and Teaching Innovation.
Under the approved prize structure, the winner in the undergraduate dissertation category will receive ₦35 million, while the best master’s thesis will attract ₦50 million. The overall winner in the doctoral category will receive ₦100 million.
In addition, six National Laureate Excellence Awards valued at ₦30 million each will be presented annually, bringing the total prize value of the programme to about ₦365 million.
Alausa also announced the establishment of the Dr Stella Adadevoh Excellence Award in Medicine and Medical Innovation, in honour of the late physician whose role during the 2014 Ebola outbreak helped avert a wider public health crisis in Nigeria.
He directed the committee to finalise eligibility requirements, evaluation procedures and institutional engagement ahead of the maiden awards in November 2026.
The committee is chaired by Prof. Abubakar Sambo, president of the Nigerian Academy of Science. Other members include representatives of the National Board for Technical Education, TETFund, the National Universities Commission, the National Commission for Colleges of Education, the Federal Ministry of Education, and other academic institutions. Richard Falaye, secretary of the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank, will serve as secretary to the committee.
Speaking on behalf of the committee, Sambo described the initiative as a major development in Nigeria’s education policy and pledged that the selection process would be guided by transparency, fairness and merit.
He said all eligible students, regardless of their institution or location, would have an equal opportunity to attain National Laureate status, adding that the process would be protected from institutional bias and other external influences.
Analysts say the programme could become a significant reform in Nigeria’s tertiary education sector if effectively implemented, particularly by strengthening incentives for commercially relevant research and deepening collaboration among universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, industry and government.
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