• Resumes payment of salary arrears to 2,000 Unity College workers

The Federal Government has approved N10 billion for the 2026 Grant Cycle of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) National Research Fund (NRF), representing a 64.2 per cent increase over the N6.09 billion committed to 174 research projects in the 2025 cycle.

TETFund disclosed this in its 2026 NRF Grant Cycle Call for Concept Notes, signed by its Executive Secretary, Arc. Sonny Echono.

According to Echono, the increased funding aims to strengthen research and boost the capacity of Nigerian researchers.

The agency announced that the portal would open for concept-note submissions on August 31, 2026, with a submission deadline of October 15, 2026.

It stressed that “there will be no extension.”

The Fund said the N10 billion would support research across 30 prioritised thematic areas, grouped under Humanities and Social Sciences; Science, Engineering, Technology and Innovation; and Cross-Cutting research areas.

According to the Fund, access to the grant would begin with Principal Investigators (PIs) submitting concept notes, with only applicants whose projects are deemed fundable proceeding to the full proposal stage.

It said lecturers in public tertiary institutions in Nigeria were eligible to apply, while multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research involving scholars from different disciplines would be encouraged.

“The PI must be institution-based, with the PI’s institution regarded as the Coordinating Institution and guarantor of proper application of the funds for the project.

“Thereafter, the successful proposals for the award of grant will be presented to the Board of Trustees of TETFund for approval and disbursement of funds,” it said.

The Fund added that the PI must be institution-based, with the PI’s institution serving as the coordinating institution and guarantor of the proper application of funds.

The application process, TETFund explained, would be conducted entirely online through the NRF portal.

It stressed that all submitted concept notes would be evaluated by the National Research Fund Screening and Monitoring Committee (NRFS&MC), after which successful PIs would be invited to develop and submit full proposals.

MEANWHILE, the Federal Government has resumed the payment of three years’ outstanding salary arrears owed to teachers and education officers in the Federal Unity Colleges.

Findings by The Guardian revealed that more than 2,000 affected workers began receiving the payments on August 28, 2026, following years of waiting for the government to clear the backlog.

The affected employees were among those recruited into the Federal Government Unity Colleges between 2019 and 2021, whose salaries subsequently accumulated into arrears.

Recall that the Nigerian government had commenced payment of the arrears in November 2025.

The development comes three years after the affected teachers protested at the Federal Ministry of Education, demanding payment of their outstanding salaries after several appeals to the government allegedly went unacknowledged.

However, a credible source at the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation confirmed that the payments had resumed, saying bank alerts had started reaching the accounts of the affected workers.