Nexus Between University Financial Sustainability and Commercialization of Research Outputs in South-West of Nigeria

Abstract

The nexus between university financial sustainability and commercialization of research outputs in South- West of Nigeria was investigated in this study. Three research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. A correlational research was applicable and adopted for the study. The population of this study comprised the management and academic staff of public universities in South-West of Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique consisting of simple random sampling was used to select 8 universities comprising three Federal and five State owned universities and stratified sampling technique was adopted to select 8 deputy vice-chancellors and a total of 1292 academic staff making a total of 1300 respondents as study sample size. Self-developed questionnaire title: Questionnaire on University Financial Sustainability and Commercialization of Research Outputs with 0.91 was used for data collection. A total of 1300 copies of the instrument was administered and only 1200 were retrieved. Descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation were adopted in answering research questions while hypothesis was tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The findings indicated that the level of universities financial sustainability and research output commercialization in South-West of Nigeria were low. Also, that academic staff capacity building, academic staff perception towards research output commercialization, entrepreneurial innovation and team work, university-industrial mutual relationship, adequate funding and university technological advancement were among the likely success determinants of universities research outputs commercialization in South-West of Nigeria. The finding further revealed that there was significant relationship between university financial sustainability and commercialization of research outputs in South-West of Nigeria (r = 0.909, p<.05). The study recommended amongst others that universities need to widen and deepen engagement with industry and other potential financial supporters at the inception stage of any research with commercial potential as active partners.