Lost research: Developing linkages among industry, academia and govt

Pakistan needs collaboration to progress and develop further

ABBOTTABAD: Collaboration among the industry, academia and the government is a critical component in the progression of any economy.

Developed nations have capitalised on the consortium of these three parties and fueled growth of their communities. Socio-economic development can a treacherous journey and requires years of sweat, blood and tears.

Across the globe, universities are comprehended as strategic assets in innovation and economic upgradation. They act as catalysts in solving socio-economic issues affecting their countries. However, we have not witnessed such an invigorating role of academia in reviving our nation’s socio-economic conditions.

The validity of research work happening in the universities of Pakistan poses dubiousness and lacks originality. The situation is alarming as more and more PhDs are being produced by these universities instead of useful contributions being added to the existing body of knowledge. The main aim of the university is to produce more and more research papers. This is the sole criterion on which promotions are granted to the faculty members without analysing the measurable impact of the research work in society let alone the socio-economic development of the country.

Also, publishing papers in high-impact journals can enhance your university ranking. In this way, focus of academic researchers remains on generating high quality research articles with less or no use of them in solving practical issues of Pakistan.

There are so many innovative ideas and quality research work that get eroded in the libraries of these universities. The public and commercial sectors do not feel a need to get benefit from the research work of the universities as there are no formal procedures of collaboration.

This also leads towards duplication of the same work by the industry as they have their own research wings and incur major costs on research and development. If commercial organisations can hire students to do this tedious task on their behalf, there will be two direct benefits of that.

Firstly, students who roam hopelessly while finding their final year research project’s topic will get a strategic direction and they can associate value with their work as it is directly impacting the real-world organisation. Secondly, corporations can reduce their costs of research and development because of the same being done at a much lower cost. It will also help companies hire the best human talent once they graduate.

Similarly, government departments can also take advantage of the research work in the universities. Government decisions are politically motivated and they often require prompt decision making even before the research work is completed. Government authorities can try to achieve multiple goals through their policies, on occasion, a policy may be formed and researches then called upon to find a rationale behind it. This has quite deteriorating affects in the social sector as researchers come up with some ground realities, and however they don’t find any avenues to publish their work which can help policy makers. Not denying the fact that they feel pride while presenting their work in research conferences again just to add some value to their resumes.

One of the major reasons Pakistan is not living up to its full potential is that there is a lack of collaboration among industry and academia. Also, government policies are usually designed while keeping in mind political motives rather than evaluating the research findings, its repercussions to the society as a whole and latest industry trends. Due to this fallacy, we have not seen yet any high-impact innovation or discovery from higher education institutes.

If Pakistan really wants to take a leap further in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship, it is high-time to develop linkages between industry and academia. Afterwards the government can draft policies accordingly. That is how real change happens or nations progress.

The writer is co-founder of Tech Valley Abbottabad, a social enterprise working to promote the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2017.

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