Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Nigeria and the Global Innovation Index (2)



Have you managed to download the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2013? If not, here is the link again.

Full GII 2013 Report: The Global Innovation Index 2013 - WIPO


In the last post, we started to digest the GII 2013 report and its ramifications for Nigeria. We highlighted the main findings. Overall, it was clear Nigeria was at the bottom end of the global innovation scale, and this has been so since measurements began in 2007. (See last post).

In the GII 2007 report, eight (8) pillars underlay the Global Innovation Index. Of these, five (5) INPUT pillars represent aspects that enhance the capacity of a nation to generate ideas and leverage them for innovative products and services. These include i) Institutions and policies, ii) Human capacity, iii) Infrastructure, iv) Technological sophistication, and v) Business markets and capital. The other three (3) OUTPUT pillars define benefits of successful innovation to the citizens and organisations of the country. These include i) Knowledge, ii) Competitiveness, and iii) Wealth.

In the GII 2013 report, seven (7) pillars were used to determine each country’s Innovation Efficiency Ratio from which its Global Innovation Index, an average, is computed. These pillars include five (5) INNOVATION INPUT SUB-INDEX such as i) Institutions (sub-divided into Political, Regulatory and Business environments); ii) Human capital and research (sub-divided into Education, Tertiary education and Research & Development); iii) Infrastructure (sub-divided into ICT, General infrastructure and Ecological sustainability); iv) Market sophistication (sub-divided into Credit, Investment and Trade & competition); v) Business sophistication (sub-divided into Knowledge workers, Innovation linkages, and Knowledge absorption); and two (2) INNOVATION OUTPUT SUB-INDEX such as i) Knowledge and technology output (sub-divided into Knowledge creation, Knowledge impact and Knowledge diffusion); and ii) Creative outputs (sub-divided into Intangible assets, Creative goods and services, and Online creativity)

The simple relevance of these seven pillars is that they are all required to play contributory roles in forging the foundation on which a country can found a culture of innovation and innovativeness.

Now here is the more disheartening part, if Nigeria is appraised on the basis of each of the indicators which comprise the seven pillars on their own merit and by themselves then the situation with innovation and innovative culture in Nigeria would be better seen as truly precarious.

Over the course of a series, this blog hopes to analyse some of the pillars and their sub-divisions in detail, but for now let us take a brief look at the second pillar which is Human capital and research (sub-divided into Education, Tertiary education and Research & Development). This blog has all along called attention to without prejudice to the GII reports to the pertinence of education to creativity and innovation. Without the benefit of specialist knowledge in computational statistics, a cursory appraisal of this pillar on mere simple focus group can reveal much to even an amateur researcher.

Here are some guide questions we may ask. What is the grand vision and the long term thrust of the present education system in Nigeria? Does this system place value on the indicators which would support, propagate and enhance creativity and innovation? What role has the tertiary education system played in cultivating and enhancing national innovativeness, if any? How many credible and marketable ideas, concepts, inventions, and innovations has emanated from the Nigerian university system? What is the Research & Development (R&D) in the Nigerian appropriation bill / annual budget? How is the budget assigned to the relevant parties? What is the state of our national R&D institutions? What results have they to show for all the funding they have received over the years?   

From the above sample questions you can design your own simple questionnaire to get some firsthand information.

One day, this writer had the privilege of meeting and interacting with one of the few women professors in science and a notable member of the women in science association. She was about to present her Inaugural Lecture at the university in which she worked at the time. This writer asked her was what the value of all the various Inaugural Lectures coming from Nigerian universities when there were no commensurate outputs in terms of knowledge creation, inventions and innovations. She smiled wryly, sadly.

The picture with innovation in Nigeria is grim. And until there is a comprehensive review of the situation on ground and a deliberate attempt to rebuild from scratch for a better future then we would be deceiving ourselves.

Just as an aside, there was a recent report of a statement in the media attributed to a respected traditional ruler in which he encouraged parents to send their children to private universities instead of waiting on public universities due to the protracted Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) strike. This blog appreciates that the king was only offering counsel to people out of genuine concern for the effects of lecturers’ ongoing industrial action on the futures of the country’s future leaders. Yet this blog cannot but reason that the traditional ruler’s counsel is premised on the faulty assumption that private universities are preferable since their academic calendar scheduling and implementation appears more stable and subject to lesser disruption. Can academic calendar stability alone suffice?

Research is a cornerstone of tertiary education but particularly the university system (notably research oriented universities). How much groundbreaking research is emanating from our universities, polytechnics, monotechnics and research institutions combined? (The next post would show the correlation between education, research and innovation). Nigeria from available evidence shows very poorly on research of any kind. Even in the agricultural sector where there has been much hue and cry about the need for recourse to reviving the sector, to diversify the economy and to provide jobs – Nigeria is, lamentably, recording very pedestrian results.

Yet experts affirm the crucial roles tertiary institutions have to play in knowledge provision for the new global knowledge economy as well as enhanced creative outputs / innovation. "Research universities in low- and middle-income countries have crucial roles to play in developing differentiated and effective academic systems, and in making it possible for their countries to join the global knowledge society and compete in sophisticated knowledge economies," according to Philip G. Altbach, research professor and director of the Centre for International Higher Education at Boston College in the United States. (See University World News Issue No: 28 of August 11, 2013)

Then there is the question of functional and well organized innovation system. Does Nigeria have a functional and well organized innovation system? Most less developed countries do not. 

In the study based on assessments on Tanzania and El Salvador (both of which are not unlike Nigeria) entitled Building systems of innovation in less developed countries: The role of intermediate organizations, Astrid Szogs,  Andrew Cummings and Cristina Chaminade stated "In well functioning innovation systems both forms of interactive learning occur under a variety of agreements for mutual collaboration between firms and knowledge providers, leading to the acquisition of new knowledge and competences that can be applied to innovative practice. Broadly speaking the basic interactions in an innovation system are those taking place between a) user – producers, b) Multinationals (MNEs) – indigenous small and medium firms (SMEs), c) among SMEs and d) between universities and other public and private business and technical knowledge providers."

From experience in facilitating an aspiring entrepreneur training and training in business development for the last five years, this writer has discovered that on ground there is only a very tenuous linkage between knowledge providers and users in Nigeria. And as for the SMEs and the multinationals they depend mostly on foreign (imported) technology and copied specializations. SMEs in Nigeria are some of the weakest in the world based on their capacity to innovate.

All things considered, in the long term, private universities do not hold the solution to Nigeria’s educational quagmire, strikes or no strikes. The same goes for polytechnics and monotechnics. The earlier this is seen the better. Short term thinking should not denude the fact that government authorities at all levels had an irreplaceable role to play in political environment, policy support, national development design and national budgetary funding levels. No private university can rise above the larger social environment within which it operates. Even for those universities pretending to have foreign exchange programmes, expat lecturers and imported case studies. In some cases, these attractions actually they are practically irrelevant to their immediate constituencies! Certainly, private university education alone cannot make Nigeria a more innovative country.

Nigerian government must frontally address human capital development and take into cognizance the policy environment and provide adequate funding to education, tertiary education and research & development.

No results with mere lip service. Nigeria must be well positioned in order to IMAGINE, CREATE and INNOVATE.

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