In collaborative effort with National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), PZ Cussons Nigeria PLC on Monday, signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to upgrade chemistry and chemical engineering laboratories in five (5) Federal universities. The collaboration is to support NOTAP in their endeavour to domesticate technology through increased relevance of research of the local institutes to the needs of Nigerian industries especially foreign entities. ‘This can only be achieved if the research infrastructure is available. ‘Dr Dan’Azimi Ibrahim, NOTAP DG, concluded.
In his speech at the occasion, the Chief Executive Officer, PZ Cussons Africa, Mr Dimitris Kostianis, affirmed PZ Cussons commitment to supply cutting-edge equipment to the five institutes based on their critical needs and assured them of patronage in their research output. 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. It will also enable them to further meet and surpass accreditation standards of the National Universities Commission (NUC). They assured that the intellectual asset are available in their institutions.
The benefitting universities are spread across the five(5) geo-political zones of the country, They include Federal University of Technology, Akure, Usmanu Danfodio University Sokoto, University of Jos, University of Port Harcourt and Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. Over N500 million will be spent to implement the MoU between now and the end of the year. PZ Cussons Nigeria PLC, as part of their Corporate Social Investment Programme, had earlier implemented similar gesture in four(4) universities and one (1) research centre. These additional universities will bring the total number of support to ten (10) under the NOTAP-Industry Research Laboratory Upgrade Project (NIRLUP)- a NOTAP Initiative.
