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The proposed STEP-B project design benefits from a lengthy and inclusive participatory process with formal and informal stakeholder groups and a year’s worth of analytic work. The proposed STEP-B Project has three components.
Component One
Competitive Fund for Quality Enhancement and Innovation (US$81 million; 45% of total Credit). Component 1 supports a facility to provide peer-reviewed and competitively-awarded quality improvement grants to federal Post-Basic Education S&T Institutions (PBEIs) and other federal S&T agencies. Fundamental to the orientation of Component 1 is the peer-reviewed process through which funds are allocated. Competitive allocation of resources based on transparent criteria for quality, relevance, and impact represents an important culture shift and innovation in federal post-basic education in Nigeria. Component 1 comprises two sub-components: 1A supporting research and development; and 1B supporting teaching and learning.
Sub-component 1A
(US$54 million; 30% of total Credit) provides competitive grants for improving access to basic and applied research (in collaboration with industry) in S&T to improve quality and relevance to local and national S&T needs. Sub-component 1A will disburse through three windows A, B and C:
- Institutional grants of up to US$250,000 to support S&T research and capacity building within individual PBEIsand other federal S&T agencies. (18% of total Credit; US$32M).
- Partnership grants up to US$800,000 to support partnerships between two or more PBEIs and other federal S&T agencies (or such groups) and industry. (10% of total credit; US$18M).
- Innovator grants of up to US$20,000 to individual S&T graduates (Bachelor, Masters and PhD) from PBEIs in their final year to encourage “Nigerian innovators of tomorrow”. (2% of total credit; US$4M)
