The Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Akoka, (UNILAG), Prof. Folasade Ogunsola, has declared the preparedness of the institution to continue to compete effectively with its peers globally, urging the academic staff to engage in research that will pass peer reviews and achieve global acclaim.

“Publication, peer review and promotion are at the heart of what we do as academics. Promotion has to be earned,” she asserted.

The vice chancellor made the remarks during a town hall meeting in the institution, convened to align its processes with global academic standards and enhance objectivity, where the management engaged academic staff in a robust dialogue on the review of the institution’s decade-old appraisal system.

The event, which was held at the J.F. Ade Ajayi (Main) Auditorium, provided academic staff from all faculties an opportunity to review proposed modifications to the assessment framework and offer feedback ahead of its implementation.

Ogunsola explained that the meeting followed a Senate resolution mandating the Appointments and Promotions Committee (APC) to review the current framework. She noted that the appraisal system, which had remained unchanged for the past decade, was no longer at par with global academic standards.

“One of the reasons we called this meeting is to hear from you. The new appraisal system will prevent the weaponisation of promotion against junior colleagues and reduce the margin of error that subjectivity allowed in the old system,” she explained.

Ogunsola added that the previous system inadvertently disadvantaged hardworking staff while failing to adequately recognise merit.

Providing a breakdown of faculty feedback, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics & Research), Prof. Matthew Ilori, presented the report of the Visitation Panel on the Publication Assessment System.

According to him, a substantial majority of academic staff across faculties support the new scoring system. Specifically, over 60 per cent of faculties supported its implementation within the current session, while approximately 40 per cent favoured delaying commencement until the next academic session.

The presentation was followed by an interactive question-and-answer session, during which academic staff raised concerns ranging from the timing of the assessment transition to the overall promotion timeline.

In tandem with the appraisal reforms, the University Librarian, Prof. Christopher Okiki, highlighted measures to boost the institution’s digital footprint. He announced the university’s commitment to increasing awareness among academic staff on publication visibility.

Okiki urged academics to consistently upload their works to the UNILAG Repository, noting that the platform is fully synced with Google to maximise global search optimisation and citation rankings.

He also encouraged lecturers to advise the research students they supervise to cite relevant works published by their supervisors in their theses.

Responding, Ogunsola announced the postponement of the implementation of the new scoring system till the next academic session, eliciting a thunderous applause from the academic staff.

She also revealed that the university was exploring frameworks to incentivise academics who publish in Q1 journals.