Cyber-Spatial Academic Networking for Energy (Oil, Natural Gas, Electricity) Development in Nigeria

Philosophers of society/sociology recently espoused the concept of a new society and its new paradigm distinguished from the old that was based on industry and the energy forms that drove them since the industrial revolution. The new society which is driven by information and communications technologies (ICTs) has created the network society whereby cyber-spatial (internet-based) platforms operate in leveraging previous and conventional interaction among researchers concerned with single subjects and/or multi-disciplinary research projects, exchanges of ideas, opinions, concerns/worries, viewpoints, project management, among other issues in the nexus of developing and applying academic knowledge. While most of those that are popularly used are of the universal (non-specific nationality or global) character, fairly country-specific (i.e. restricted membership or nation-focused) cyber-spatial platforms present opportunities for enhancing or optimizing the profit of academic interaction and exchanges that concentrate on challenges that are limited to one country but promote greater understanding among those academics involved compared to the rather universal cyber-spatial platforms. Here, we conceive and hypothetically theorize a cyber-spatial platform for enhancing interaction among Nigerian scholars and academics concerned with energy which has been driving industry. Examined in this article are: contexts of scholarship in Nigeria (tertiary educational institutions, research and knowledge needs for sustainable development; the network society as a suitable framework for theoretically framing the cyber-spatial platform; an exemplary multi-disciplinary approach for multi-disciplinary petroleum oil, natural gas and energy concentrating on (or drawing from) the social sciences; management of the program; discussion and conclusion. The implications of this article for policy is that while the National Universities’ Commission and the Federal Ministry of Education, TETFUND, (Tertiary Education Trust Fund), and related public agencies are responsible for funding and managing the proposed program, it is also the responsibility of individual tertiary educational institutions (TEIs) to demonstrate that the program presents opportunities for lifting it and its peers above the current miserable scenario whereby they all do not count in the list of the world’s 500 leading universities.