Research awards are usually confirmed by committee of Deans before letters of allocation are sent out to beneficiaries for collection of such funds from the University Bursary Department. Allocation of Research funds by instalments is a University policy which has tended to slow down research work. The policy intention is that of accountability. Part funding requires a beneficiary to retire same to qualify for release of the balance. The tendency has however been that such paltry releases are collected and probably expended on other areas as such funds are inadequate to make meaningful progress in the research. Group research on Departmental or Faculty bases is encouraged. This would attract a higher allocation which usually ensures completion of the research project. While being optimistic that Government funding of research in the University of Calabar would henceforth be regular and significantly improve in value, we have set out some basic strategies to curb potential apathy to research activities amongst the teaching staff. These include the following:

• Faculties and Institutes are to be advised to institute a high profile research forum (seminar, workshop, conference, symposium, etc) for scholarly interaction and exchange of knowledge as presently conducted by the Institute of Public Policy and Administration (IPPA);
• Senate Research Grants Committee monthly symposium on research capacity building would be sustained;
• Optimising of research grants funding by giving priority to interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research; and
• Encourage interfaculty/institute rivalry in research productivity.

Below is an example of method adopted in enhancing research as in the 2002 Research Symposium’s note to resource persons. Body of lecture should of necessity address the state of the art methods and processes employed in the following:

• Development and introduction of work scope in research discipline under focus
• Identification and reviewing of relevant research literature in subject discipline
• Focussing on research problem: pre-conceived stigma, biases, falsifications, etc.
• Presentation of Results: form, structure, analyses, appendices, graphics, etc
• Discussion of Results: linking with research target and literature, over-generalizations, clarity of evidence, extrapolation and projections basis, modelling conceptualisation, etc.
• Proof reading: language flow, errors format, logic sequence, etc.
• Case Studies exemplifying employment of best practice methods as elucidated.

Adherence to the above general points would be most appreciated, as it would greatly ease the work of our moderators, rapporteurs, and subsequent write-up of the presentation (maximum of 5 double-spaced pages).