Prince Agwu holds academic positions at the University of Nigeria and the University of Dundee, is a Guest Lecturer at the University of Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Health Policy Research Group, University of Nigeria. He has a First Class in Social Work from the University of Nigeria, a Masters in Social Policy, and a PhD in Social Policy, funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. Prince's niche research areas are health systems, health policy, and migration, essentially focusing on governance models and wellbeing outcomes.
Agwu has published remarkably in his field, with over three scores (>60) of his publications indexed in Scopus. Sci-Val ranks him among the top 280 scholars in Nigeria (with more than 170 Universities); top 60 at the University of Dundee, and top 20 at the University of Nigeria. He is an Editor for Health Research Policy and Systems (HRPS), which is co-published by the World Health Organisation, the first African Section Editor for Social Work and Social Sciences Review (SWSSR), Editor for Health Economics, Policy and Law (HEPL), and a former Academic Editor with PLoS ONE.
Agwu takes an applied approach to research, ensuring the drive of policies, strategies, and programmes using research evidence. For example, as the Principal Investigator of the Protect Urban School Children's Health (PUSH) Project funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) through the CHORUS-Urban Health Consortium, Agwu is emerging with innovations for the review of Nigeria's school-health legislations and bridging gaps between schools and the primary healthcare system.
As one of the earliest contributors to the study of health corruption in Nigeria, Agwu has co-founded the Health Anticorruption Project Advisory Committee (HAPAC). Other projects of Agwu, either as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI, include subjects on health communication, human trafficking, and examination ethics.
One of Agwu's famous studies in the education sector in Nigeria is the 'Miracle Examination Centre' (MEC), where he worked with his team to expose rogue examination syndicates. Funded by the FCDO through the Anticorruption Evidence Consortium at SOAS, Agwu reinvented the reconnaissance approach in qualitative research, which he applied in uncovering illicit practices in examination conduct and to build relationships with stakeholders in the study areas. The reconnaissance approach was later consolidated by Agwu when he applied it in identifying informal health providers in urban slums as well as their operations.
Agwu led the Human Trafficking Prevalence Study in Nigeria as Principal Investigator, with funding from the US Department of State Programme to End Modern Slavery. The study also sought to establish a Human Trafficking Evidence Laboratory for the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, Nigeria (NAPTIP). Currently, Agwu is developing two studies in the areas of: (a) galvanising Nigeria's health sector for anti-human trafficking, and (b) building anticorruption into anti-human trafficking.
He served as a member of the Advisory Board for the Evidence Laboratory based at NAPTIP and a part of the steering committee for the Human Trafficking Research Network (HTRN). Agwu leads communications for the African Health Observatory Platform (AHOP), Nigeria. Overall, his research goals are rooted in the ideals of social purpose, essentially maximising the potential of the African continent towards contributing to global prosperity and peace.
