PZ Cussons Nigeria PLC, and the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to upgrade chemistry and chemical engineering laboratories in five Federal universities.
Over N500 million will be spent to implement the MoU between now and the end of the year, the parties said in a statement yesterday.
The benefitting universities, which are spread across five geo-political zones, include:
- the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Akure;
- Usmanu Danfodio University Sokoto;
- University of Jos;
- University of Port Harcourt; and,
- Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike.
The collaboration, which was sealed on Monday, will support NOTAP’s efforts to domesticate technology through increased relevance of research of the local institutes to the needs of Nigerian industries especially foreign entities.
In a statement yesterday, NOTAP Director-General, Dr Dan’Azimi Ibrahim, was quoted as saying that “This can only be achieved if the research infrastructure is available.”
Commenting, the Chief Executive Officer, PZ Cussons Africa, Dimitris Kostianis, affirmed the company’s commitment to supply cutting-edge equipment to the five institutes based on their critical needs, and also assured them of patronage in their research output.
PZ will supply cutting-edge equipment to the five institutes based on their critical needs.
In their response, the Vice Chancellors of the benefitting universities affirmed the equipment will help a great deal in raising their research capability to be at par with international research centres.
They added that it will also enable them to further meet and surpass accreditation standards of the National Universities Commission (NUC), while assuring that the intellectual assets are available in their institutions.
PZ Cussons Nigeria PLC, as part of their Corporate Social Investment Programme, had earlier implemented similar gestures in four universities and one research centre.
These additional universities will bring the total number of supports to 10 under theNOTAP-Industry Research Laboratory Upgrade Project (NIRLUP) – a NOTAP Initiative.
