Prof. Florence Banku Obi, partnering UNICAL with foreign universities for academic excellence

……UNICAL lecturer, postgraduate student, bags commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship As part of her dogged commitment and foresight towards promoting academic excellence in UNICAL, Prof. Obi is raising the capacity and intellectual base of academic and non staff of the institution. It would be recalled that on August 12, 2021, the University of Calabar entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Queen’s University, Belfast, United Kingdom. The MOU entered into was to pursue exchange of graduate students for study and research; visits by and interchange of staff for research, teaching and discussions; exchange of information, as well as joint research activities. Gladly, the partnership has began to yield positive academic results. Today, an academic staff and a postgraduate student, both of the University of Calabar, have been awarded the 2023 Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship tenable at Queen's University, Belfast, United Kingdom, to enable them carry out part of their PhD research work. The recipients are; Mr Joseph Akuirene, a Lecturer II in the Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, and Mr Finian Okoro, a postgraduate student in the Department of Biological Oceanography. The scholarship award is worth about $34,915 exclusive of flight to and from the UK, this is even as it confers on the recipients the right to be addressed as Commonwealth Scholars. Recently, UNICAL Research Teams won TETFUND grants of over N63million for academic research. Also in 2021, the Directorate of Research in UNICAL reviewed and recommended a total of 46 Institional Based Research proposals out of which 41 were approved by TETFund and first tranche of money released. This is the highest number of Institutional Based Research beneficiaries in one intervention year since the establishment of the University. No doubt, Prof. Obi was well equipped and ready for the job of promoting academic research in the University of Calabar. George Odok