In Nigeria, the recurring impoverishment and other negative socioeconomic impacts endured by landholders affected by expropriation are well-documented and call into question the Land Use Act’s (LUA) effectiveness in protecting local land rights. The World Bank’s Land Governance Assessment Framework found that, in Nigeria, “a large number of acquisitions occurs without prompt and adequate compensation, thus leaving those losing land worse off, with no mechanism for independent appeal even though the land is often not utilized for a public purpose”. Such negative outcomes may be due to a number of factors, including corruption, limited capacity, and insufficient financing as well as Nigeria’s weak legal framework. According to a recent study of compensation procedures established in national laws of 50 countries, Nigeria’s compensation procedure lags behind many of the countries assessed because the LUA mostly fails to adopt international standards on the valuation of compensation. This article examines Nigerian expropriation and compensation procedures in more detail by combining both an in-depth legal analysis of Nigeria’s expropriation laws as well as survey and qualitative research that indicates, to some extent, how expropriation laws function in practice in Nigeria. Based on our legal assessment, surveys, and interviews with both government and private sector officials involved in the LFTZ, we found that the Nigerian government failed to comply with international standards on expropriation and compensation, both in terms of its laws and its practices in the LFTZ case. This article expands our conference paper written for the UN Economic Commission of Africa Conference on Land Policy in Africa, which took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November of 2017. Under Nigeria’s LUA, affected landholders are not granted the right to participate in expropriation and compensation decision-making or otherwise be consulted on matters affecting their land and livelihoods. In 2004, the LUA enabled the Lagos State government to set aside 16,500 hectares of expropriated agricultural land from Lagos coastal communities to develop the Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ). Following the expropriation, the Lagos State Government (LSG) and Lekki Worldwide Investment Limited signed a Memorandum of Understand (MOU) with nine affected communities in 2007. The MOU is a legally binding document that promises compensation, alternative land, jobs, healthcare, and educational opportunities to the communities affected by expropriation. However, our research suggests that the MOU has not been fully honored. According to a survey of 140 affected households conducted in August 2017, the government still had not paid sufficient compensation to all affected communities or had not yet provided them with suitable alternative land, jobs, equity shares and other entitlements promised by the MOU. While there are several reasons why the MOU has not been honored, this article mainly focuses on the failure of the LUA to establish binding obligations on government officials to compensation, resettle, and reconstruct the livelihoods of affected landholders. This article argues that the LUA must be reformed so that, whenever land is expropriated for development projects, the government and private sector entities (i.e., acquiring bodies) have a legal obligation to provide sufficient and prompt compensation, alternative land, jobs, equity shares, and other entitlements to affected landholders. Moreover, the LUA should obligate the government and acquiring bodies to follow a transparent and participatory process when expropriating land and compensating communities so that, if properly enforced, the reformed LUA can mitigate the risks commonly associated with expropriation, including landholder impoverishment, displacement, food insecurity, and conflict.

In economics, land has been traditionally assumed to be a fixed production factor, both in terms of quantity supplied and mobility, as opposed to capital and labor, which are usually considered to be mobile factors, at least to some extent. Yet, in the last decade, international investors have expressed an unexpected interest in farmland and in land-related investments, with the demand for land brusquely rising at an unprecedented pace. In spite of a fast-growing literature analyzing the variety of “spaces” affected by large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs), the contemporary process of “commodification” of land embedded in this phenomenon has taken present day economists by surprise. This paper reviews the evolution over time of the concept of land in economics and it suggests how different aspects of this evolution are relevant to the understanding of contemporary LSLAs. Rather than presuming to analyze in a systematic and comprehensive manner the immense literature in land economics, this article investigates what makes land a peculiar and complex commodity. Indeed, different branches of economic thought, at different moments in time, pointed out that the location of land in space matters; that land is a living and fundamental component of the ecosystem; that it is a valuable economic asset, and yet, it is often hard to value it in pure monetary terms; eventually, that land is intrinsically connected to societies, cultural and spiritual identities, mores, and institutions. Through a brief history of the evolution of the concept of land in economics, this paper identifies four broad categories—namely, space, economics, environment, and institutions—that help understanding land as a peculiar good. These four elements characterize land as a commodity, as well as its peculiarities, and constitute the prerequisites of a conceptual framework for the analysis and the understanding of the forces at play in the contemporary wave of large-scale land acquisitions.

Openness and transparency in the research process are a prerequisite to the production of high quality research outputs. Efforts to maximise these features have substantially accelerated in recent years, placing open and transparent research practices at the forefront of funding and related priorities, and encouraging investment in resources and infrastructure to enable such practices. Despite these efforts, there has been no systematic documentation of current practices, infrastructure, or training and resources that support open and transparent research in the UK. To address this gap, we developed and conducted the Open and Transparent Research Practices survey, a large-scale audit study completed by research-active staff in UK research institutions to better understand existing practices, needs, support, and barriers faced when implementing open and transparent research. The data presented here capture responses from over 2,500 research-active staff based at 15 institutions affiliated with the UK Reproducibility Network. The data provide a snapshot of open research practices that can be used to identify barriers, training needs, and areas that require greater investments.

In the version of the article initially published, in the "Sampling" column of Table 1, the University of Sheffield was originally listed as "Opportunity" but has now been amended to "Stratified". Additionally, in the fourth paragraph of the "Background & Summary" section, the text "In 2022, members of the UKRN published the results of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS), which measured awareness and uptake of Open Research practices across the UKRN Local Networks. The survey found that respondents were most aware of Open Access publications, preprints and open data, and the most commonly reported means to foster further uptake of Open Research practices were incentives, dedicated funding, and recognition in promotion and recruitment criteria" has been added, alongside a new ref. 15: Norris, E. et al. Development of the brief open research survey (bors) to measure awareness and uptake of open research practices, https://doi.org/10.