Research and innovation : AIOU secures major research grant

Award is for three projects focusing on socio-economic problems facing Pakistan .

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has approved three research-based projects of Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) worth Rs14 million, enabling the educational institute to conduct research on  socio-economic problems facing Pakistan.

These projects are related to archaeology, history and management sciences.

The AIOU has received the highest HEC’s thematic research grant this year, said AIOU Vice-Chancellor Dr Shahid Siddiqui, while presiding over a meeting of academics.

He said that the university submitted 10 research proposals to the HEC for the next year under the National Research Program for the Universities (NRP).

There has been an upward trend of winning research grants by the university from national and international institutions in the recent years, Dr Siddiqui said.

He said that they had laid greater emphasis on research-based activities to improve the university’s academic ranking and maintain its learning standard in terms of quality and productivity.

Various incentives have been provided to the academic and non-academic staff to do research that benefit the society.

“We want to promote research and practice in the higher education sector,” the vice-chancellor said.

“We are engaged in promoting research culture in the country at the higher education level. It has already been decided to give cash prizes to best researchers, besides other incentives, for undertaking applied research,” he added.

A package of incentives has also been approved to encourage academics to focus on research-based activities that benefit the society. The cash awards will be given for writing books and research articles.

It was also decided that the university would also bear travelling and lodging expenses of its teaching staff for attending seminars and conference at home and abroad.

The research package is aimed at gearing up development at various levels through new inventions and to enhance the role of academics in policy making.

The AIOU has formally set up a separate office of research, innovation and commercialisation (ORIC) to maintain liaison with the industrial sector to share latest research in the relevant fields.

The office works as a bridge between researchers and the end-users for the application of latest knowledge in a particular field.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2016.