Psychological Safety Climate, Team Learning, and Innovation in Nigeria’s Public Research Institutions: A Multi-Level Investigation

This study conducts a multi-level investigation of psychological safety climate, team learning behaviour, and innovation outcomes in Nigerian public research institutions, including universities of technology, agricultural research institutes, and science and technology agencies across the South West, North East, and South South geopolitical zones. Nigeria's investment in research and development has grown modestly in recent years, yet innovation output from public research institutions remains disproportionately low, and the human resource and team behavioural conditions necessary for sustained scientific innovation are poorly understood in this context. The study employs a multi-level cross-sectional design with two-wave team-level data collection, drawing on 48 research teams and 384 individual researchers from 16 institutions. Multi-level instruments assess individual psychological safety perceptions, team learning behaviour, and research innovation outputs measured through publication rates, patent applications, and technology transfer activities. HLM analysis examines cross-level interactions between institutional HR climate, team psychological safety, and individual innovation outcomes. Psychological Safety Theory, Organisational Learning Theory, and Multi-Level Innovation Theory provide the theoretical architecture. Findings reveal that team psychological safety significantly predicts team learning behaviour, which in turn mediates the relationship between psychological safety and research innovation output. Institutional HR climate, particularly leadership openness and resource adequacy, cross-level moderates the team psychological safety-learning relationship. HR practices emphasising intellectual risk-taking permission, failure tolerance, and collaborative knowledge sharing are identified as the strongest institutional predictors of team-level psychological safety. Original contributions include a Multi-Level HRM-Innovation Model for African Research Institutions, a Public Research HR Climate Inventory, and policy recommendations for the National Research Innovation Fund. Keywords: Psychological Safety, Team Learning, Innovation, Public Research, Multi-Level Analysis.