At the University of Lagos (UNILAG), the next breakthrough may already be sitting in a laboratory, an office, a department, or in the mind of a member of staff who has identified a better way of doing things.
In view of this, the Entrepreneurship and Skills Development Centre (ESDC) of the University of Lagos, is inviting staff to participate in two innovation-driven initiatives tagged, the UNILAG Shelf-to-Market Innovation Challenge (S-MIC) and the Staff-Driven Efficiency, Entrepreneurship and Digitalisation (SEED) Challenge.
These Challenges are designed to transform research, workplace challenges, and promising ideas into solutions with meaningful institutional and societal impact.
For Academic Staff: S-MIC
The Shelf-to-Market Innovation Challenge (S-MIC) is designed to bridge the gap between academic research and societal impact by identifying promising research outputs, inventions, discoveries, creative works, technologies, processes, and other intellectual assets with commercial potential.
Through the Challenge, participating academic staff will be supported along a pathway that includes solution development, market validation, business modelling, prototyping and expert pitching. The initiative seeks to move promising ideas from the shelf towards market-ready products, services, enterprises, policies, and technology-driven solutions capable of addressing real-world needs.
Academic staff across all faculties are invited to propose innovation challenge themes, problem statements, opportunity domains, and solution concepts with potential for commercialisation, scalability, investment attraction, revenue generation, and measurable social impact.
Click here ——> https://forms.gle/nYS5wZQuSpVWb4Qx8 to apply for the S-MIC.
For Non-Teaching Staff: SEED Challenge
For non-teaching staff, the Staff-Driven Efficiency, Entrepreneurship and Digitalisation (SEED) Challenge, themed, “From Workplace Problems to Innovative Solutions,” offers an opportunity to turn everyday institutional challenges into ideas that can improve the way the University works.
The initiative recognises that staff who work closely with institutional processes, systems, students, and stakeholders are often best positioned to identify inefficiencies and service gaps. SEED encourages participants to develop solutions that simplify processes, reduce waste and delays, improve productivity, explore value creation, and harness technology, automation, artificial intelligence, and data-driven approaches.
Participants can apply as individual innovators or as departmental, cross-functional, or strategic innovation teams. Shortlisted innovations will have opportunities for mentoring, prototyping support, intellectual property advisory, startup incubation, and pathways towards University-wide adoption, funding access, and industry partnerships.
Click here ——> https://forms.gle/eGpCENbgvdfuuZ2n7 to apply for the SEED Challenge.
Your Idea Could Move UNILAG Forward
Both Challenges invite staff to look at their work, their research, their environment, and the challenges around them with fresh eyes. A research discovery could become a product. A recurring workplace frustration could become a smarter process. An idea that has lived in a notebook could become a solution with impact far beyond its starting point.
This is the kind of thinking that keeps an institution moving forward, and indeed continues to position UNILAG as the University of First Choice and the Nation’s Pride.
For UNILAG, innovation is increasingly about creating the conditions for its people to identify possibilities, build solutions, test ideas, and translate knowledge and experience into measurable impact.
Interested staff are encouraged to take the first step by reviewing the relevant programme brief by clicking the respective buttons below, and submitting their applications on or before Friday, November 13, 2026.
The challenge is real.
The opportunity is here.
What will you build?
