Professors, research leaders and industry practitioners gathered at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, recently for a research training session examining how Nigerian universities can move beyond publication driven models towards frameworks that connect academic work more directly to industry, innovation and national development.

The session, hosted through the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Development, Prof Akanni Akinyemi, featured industry keynote speaker Akin Monehin, whose work focuses on organisational execution, strategy delivery and bridging the gap between knowledge creation and practical implementation.

Monehin challenged researchers to think more deliberately about the usability and real world impact of their work. "You should not just focus on publishing, awards, citations and internal circulation," he said. "Organisations are struggling with problems whose solutions may already exist somewhere on your shelf. The challenge is often not knowledge creation, but connecting what has been developed to the real world, where it is required."

Prof Niran Oluwaranti, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of Partnerships at OAU, said the discussions aligned with wider national conversations around research commercialisation and industry relevance. "The speaker is right; we really can't continue to have research that just stays on the shelf," he noted, adding that universities must rethink how academic contribution is evaluated. "It should no longer be only about publishing papers and accumulating points. The question should increasingly become: who is adopting your research, and what value is it creating?"

Prof Christianah Elusiyan, Professor of Natural Product Chemistry and Senior Research Fellow at OAU, said the session challenged longstanding assumptions about academic work. "This is a fundamental shift to let our research impact society, which is where it is needed. We need that reorientation," she stated.

Prof Akinyemi disclosed that the university is partnering with alumni and investing in two new structures to deepen this orientation. The first, an International Centre for Development, is designed to create stronger collaboration between researchers and practitioners around real world challenges. The second, the WEIRD Centre, will focus on innovation, creativity and interdisciplinary experimentation.

"The future of universities will depend not only on rigour, but on their ability to connect knowledge to impact," Akinyemi said. "Research becomes more powerful when the marketplace, policymakers and society can actually use it."