Call for research to improve economic productivity

HEC executive director says meritocracy should be promoted

ISLAMABAD:

There is a need to promote research that contributes to strengthening the economy of Pakistan by building up high-quality exportable products.

This was stated by Higher Education Commission (HEC) Executive Director Dr Shaista Sohail. She was speaking at a national conference titled "Meeting of the Minds" organised by the National Academy of Higher Education (NAHE) on Tuesday.

HEC Chairman Dr Tariq Banuri stressed the need of moving away from the metrics that emphasise on the quantity of research papers produced to an approach that values the weight of one quality paper.

He added that a paper that either solves or contributes meaningfully to solving a problem should be valued over dozens of papers which do not develop a body of knowledge.

The conference, held under the leadership of Rector Shaheen Sardar Ali, brought together early career researchers/academics who have undergone training at NAHE under the National Faculty Development Program (NFDP) and placed at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) through the Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs (IPFP) fellowships. These IPFP Fellows received a Start Up Research Grant (SRGP) for a research project at the institution of placement of up to Rs1 million. Upon completion of the project, NAHE encouraged them to reflect their research findings in a poster and provided them training on poster making, which was offered by Dr Rahman Shah Zaib Saleem from LUMS.

Panel members (senior academics) from HEIs in the country evaluated these posters and received a three-minute presentation by the fellows, explaining their research and poster, after which authors of the five top-ranked posters were announced. A total of 65 fellows submitted their posters for evaluation.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2022.