The Vice-Chancellor, University of Medical Sciences (UNIMED), Ondo City, Ondo State, Prof. Adesegun Fatusi has highlighted the importance of research in the development of the healthcare sector in Nigeria.
He made the remarks at the opening of the 2022 UNIMED Research Day programme of the University with the theme ‘Academic Independence and Career Progression’.
Prof. Fatusi described good research as problem-solving, saying it is the only tool that can help address revolving health issues in our society as it discovers new treatments, improved diagnosis and better health management strategies among others.
He said: ‘Today is a watershed in our agenda as a university in terms of what we see our university becoming and what we see as a crystalizing event that will ultimately define who we are as a university. One of the things that define a university as against a secondary school is research. A secondary or primary school will teach, but in the university, we don’t teach abstractly, we use our research to inform what we teach and that is why without being a good researcher, I don’t think you can progress considerably in our teaching agenda.’
The VC appreciated the Director, Central Office for Research and Development, UNIMED, Ondo, Prof. Olumide Ogundahunsi and all members of the Academic Events Planning Committee of the university for organizing the programme.
Delivering the Keynote lecture titled ‘Achieving Academic Independence and Progresssion through Collaborative Research’, the Guest Speaker, Dr. Akindele Olupelumi Adebiyi president-elect of the International Epidemiological Association, Public Health Physician and faculty at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, charged participants on the need to collaborate to achieve excellence.
‘Research that does not solve a problem in society is a waste of time because the mandate of academia is teaching and inspiring change in society, this can only be achieved through quality research,’Adebiyi stated.
He advised that young lecturers should be allowed protected time to enable them to carry out research. To promote accountability, the institution should design means of measuring productivity.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic, Prof. Roseangela Nwuba chaired an interactive panel discussion on career progression and independence. The programme also featured systematic analyses of faculty research and publication output, as well as poster presentations of ongoing research projects.
A total of 32 researchers presented their research for the poster session. A panel of 3 senior professors was constituted by the organisers to determine the 3 best posters presented. Each poster was evaluated in the following 5 domains – i) Justification for the research, ii) presentation of the research work, iii) quality of the illustrations, iv) data analysis and v) interpretation of the results.
The first place was shared by Dr. A.O Falade of the Department of Biochemistry (Computational studies on the cholinesterase, beta-secretase 1 and monoamine oxidase inhibitory activities of endophytes- derived compounds: towards the discovery of novel neurotherapeutics) and Dr Ifeoluwa Oyeyemi from the department of Biological Sciences (Methanol extract of Nymphae lotus (Linn) ameliorated carbon tetrachloride-induced rat liver fibrosis and inhibit human castrate resistant prostate carcinoma in vitro.). Both first-place winners were awarded a prize of ₦200,000 each to be used towards the advancement of their research work. 
The poster presented by Dr. Raphael Uwejigho from the Anatomy Department (Psychosocial stress and fertility: Potentials of Vitamin E as evidenced from the testes and epididymis) was awarded third place with a prize of ₦100,000 to be used towards the advancement of his research work.
