A special mentorship programme for young academics and post-graduate students in the Department of Animal Sciences, OAU, Ile-Ife,

was conducted by the iLINOVA–OAU team on 3rd October, 2014. The mentorship programme was tagged “Research – meaning and relevance, with application to Animal Sciences and indigenous livestock’’. Prof. E.B. Sonaiya, chaired and moderated the programme.

The goal of this mentorship programme was to guide and mentor young academics and post-graduate students on the very essentials of conducting high quality research, identify and discuss challenges associated with conducting research and to proffer solutions to such challenges. These goals become a priority mentoring issue when one considers the importance of research in the careers of young academics and postgraduate students.

The session started by group presentations from students, about their knowledge of research and research techniques in Animal Sciences.
These included:-

• knowledge of cause-and-effect,
• hypothesis testing,
• scientific methods,
• techniques for on-farm adaptive research,
• research–policy interphase, etc.

These presentations were followed by plenary discussions on:

• the in-depth meaning of scientific research, with particular reference to Animal Sciences;
• what constitutes excellent research;
• research techniques in Animal Sciences;
• research ethics and norms, including the Principle of Prior Informed

Questions were posed by students on the aforementioned topics to which Prof. Sonaiya and Dr S. O. Oseni and other staff in the Department provided answers. The forum provided a robust opportunity to discuss different aspects and dimensions of research, geared towards proper mentorship for postgraduate students and fledgling academics. Sessions on action research, on-farm adaptive research, researchpolicy-practice interphase, all focused on indigenous livestock research and development are in the offing.