Student leaders at the College of Agriculture and Natural Sciences (CANS) have been trained on the procedures and strategies involved in accessing and winning grants for research.
The beneficiary students were drawn from departmental associations within the College.
The training, organised by the office of the Provost, was also aimed at equipping participants with practical strategies to develop compelling research grant proposals aligned with contemporary funding trends.
Dr. Ing. Isaac Mbir Bryant, of the Department of Environmental Science, said grants were non- payable and should be used for special purposes.
He said the importance of research grant was to provide financial, support, innovation, as well as carry out research.
He said the reason for providing grants was to solve real-life problems.
"For example, the DIVAGRI Project, we solved real-life problems where farmers were relying on mono-cropping, others were using irrigation mechanisms which were not efficient. Some waste was generated and left unattended to, among others. So what we did with the waste was to combine them to biogas to produce organic fertilizer and renewable energy. So in this case we have solved a problem," he added.
Some students at the workshop
He said there were student-based grants that the participants could access and win, as well as international government-based grants, such as the German Research Foundation.
Dr. Ing. Bryant urged them to embrace interdisciplinary research as most of the funders preferred researchers from different disciplines to solve real-life problems.
He encouraged students to ensure that their research had an impact on society.
He indicated that there were many research impacts, including academic, social, cultural, health, environmental, and economic.
Dr. Ing. Bryant admitted that lack of awareness or information about grant opportunities, limited mentorship and proposal writing experience, as well as high competition for limited funds were some of the challenges in accessing grants.
He encouraged the students to visit www. Grants.gov to access grants.
The Provost of CANS, Prof. Rofela Combey, who took the students through academic excellence in student leadership, advised the student leaders to manage their time properly while in school, since that will offer them a positive step to excel in life.
Prof. Rofela Combey
She noted that time was a non-renewable resource which needed to be managed efficiently to excel in life, pointing out that failure to do so will have dire consequences for their future aspirations.
Prof. Combey noted that most students wasted too much of their time on unnecessary issues that did not add value to their lives and, therefore, grew up without achieving their goals.
The Provost implored them to master their course descriptions to ensure excellence in academic work.
She gave the assurance that she would organise continuously experiential training for students to acquire 21st century skills.
Prof. Combey further urged the students to set good examples and adopt them as their actions would reflect in the future.