Promoting Research in Pakistan: A Few Ideas

Importance of Science and technology based research in a society is a known fact. I think it will be useless to look inside the statistics of different scientific organizations to realize where Pakistan stands in world research arena. All of us already have a goods idea about our research standing in the world and that’s why we have gathered here to be the part of a national dialogue to help improve the situation. Below are few of my ideas that can prove to be helpful in improving the standard of research and its output in Pakistan.

First thing we need to have a firm belief in is that there is no shortcut to success. Every country having some reasonable place at scientific and technological fronts in the world has come a long way spending several decades of non-stop pro-research policies with heavy funding. If we are taking a start now, we should realize that we have a long way to go which will check our nerves/commitment to the cause at many stages in coming years and it is our responsibility to make sure that our policy makers remain dedicated enough during whole of this process regardless of the political structure of the country. In other words, effective policy making, effective implementation of the policies and continuity of the policies with the uniform intensity should be the first most important thing.

In modern world, universities are regarded as “research factories”. Most of the research comes out of universities. Especially, in Pakistan, where industry is not too much hi-tech to support good research, role of universities becomes more important. I have observed that most of our universities emphasize all of their efforts over under-graduate programs and higher education is considered a less important part. As a result, although the standard of undergraduates coming out of the universities is quite good but there is no state of the art research being produced by them. It is important that we strengthen higher education programs in our universities and make the people realize that universities are supposed to be research institutions, not only educational ones.

To make sure that university administration realizes the role of this entity as a “research factory”, universities should be headed by researchers. Preferably, those researchers who have been working in internationally recognized research centers for several years and who know the models and methodology of research in developed countries. Right now, universities are being run by military generals who are good in basic management skills but it is impossible for them to understand the complex process of management for the research organizations

Individuals working in universities should realize the importance of their jobs. I know that many of them already realize their importance but I have seen some of them who join university to make their lives easier. They lack the initiative and it seems that they are only interested in delivering a couple of lectures per week. They need to realize that working in a university means being a part of research team and responsible for participating in a national movement of development of research infrastructure. To make them realize this fact, “award for performance only” based system should be introduced in universities. For example, seniority of researchers should not be judged by the number of years they have been working in the university but by the number of international publications and number of citations/publication (quality of their publication).

Universities need to develop international links. In this regard, we can get benefit of overseas Pakistanis serving in foreign universities who can play a significant role in this regard in this relation enhancing process. These links can be established at different levels. University to university links will be more effective. However, with the help of overseas Pakistani professionals, we can also start own research initiatives by contacting interested faculty staffs and students to start individual small scale research projects.

Research, in most of the cases, is very expensive. In most of the cases, it is also a very risky investment as there is a little guarantee of coming something good out of the effort. But still, there are a lot of research possibilities in many software based research fields where a lot of investment is not required. For example research on real time systems and study of their concurrency issues, scientific software development, use of softwares available for free in research domains, Hardware soft IP (Intellectual Property) development, research on artificial intelligence, machine learning and many more fields like this don’t require a lot of money in the beginning. Similarly, working on theoretical aspects of some fields doesn’t require a lot of funds. So, universities should normally take initiatives in starting less expensive type of research. In some cases, universities can also support expensive applied research if they can get funding from the industry.

This idea may seem a bit different from the things being discussed but it is perhaps one of the most important issues. Idea is that universities should have strong programs of liberal arts and social sciences. Even, a few courses of liberal arts should be the part of technical degree courses. Imbalance and inappropriate Islamiat and Pakistan Studies courses are causing production of technical but narrow-minded and visionless professionals. So, these courses should be taken out of the university syllabus. A normal student entering a university already has studied these courses for twelve years and it seems useless to make them study the same thing again. Better approach is to replace these courses with courses of liberal arts.

For last few years, MoST and HEC is heavily investing in sending Pakistani students abroad. It is a very good change and HEC deserves applause for it. But the question is how many of these researchers will come back to the country? I think, next challenge for HEC is to make sure that researchers come back and money invested by HEC should come back to the country and help in enhancing the research output. It can be done by creating enough research opportunities for them where they can find satisfaction with their ambitions. Also, material benefits given to the researchers should match to their abilities.

It is a custom all over the world that state of the art research is being done in defense organizations. But unlike Pakistan, this research is made public after few years. Evolution of internet is a prime example of this type of research. While, in Pakistan, the only area where a little research is being done is defense sector. It is important that the application of the research output of those organizations is applied in non-defense organizations also. Technology used in missile guidance systems, nuclear arms and battlefield communication technologies can be used in peace time modern communication systems, signal processing applications and many more fields like these. Participation of private sector technology based organizations should also be introduced at least in those sectors which are not very sensitive.


Small and medium sized technology based industries should be strongly supported by government. For this purpose, government should hold statistical research to determine the importance of initialization of new type of local industries and rank them according to its requirements. Then, it should help the entrepreneurs and skilled businessmen with technical backgrounds to start their ventures. As an example, to my knowledge, there is no IC (Integrated Chip) fabrication facility in Pakistan. If government feels that Pakistan should start fabricating hardware equipment after 30 years, it should seriously define a road map. It should prepare case study of East Asian countries and define the major steps which resulted in the world class electronic equipment development centers. Government should find the investors who may be willing to invest in first small sized basic transistor making plants. Government should closely work with private sector and help them pointing out the market needs and further steps which take them towards building a big silicon foundry.

As private sector starts participating in hi-tech sector, it will become more important to implement laws on Intellectual Property Rights in near future. Private sector in a country will never be willing to go towards risky business based on invention and its benefits until the businessman is not sure that his original work is safe and he can get good monetary benefits from it.


Another potential area, where Pakistan can take help is overseas Pakistanis. Government should make extreme efforts to come in contact with the Pakistani researchers living abroad and serving in foreign universities / research organizations. Pakistanis who are serving in universities abroad can offer admissions and scholarships for brilliant Pakistani students in foreign universities. I know some Pakistanis are already doing so but their number seems to be very less than our potential. In my opinion, establishing a Pakistani community in a university should be a part of political game. Just like the Indians have done well and made strong lobbies in many good universities and multinationals, what about Pakistanis starting now and going towards attracting other Pakistanis for a strong community building process.

Pakistanis living abroad can initiate short term research projects with their counter parts in Pakistan. Offering the students some internship on hot topics and making them work on these projects while students are living in Pakistan can help improve their standard. The purpose of such collaboration is not only the research output but also the transfer of technology from west to Pakistan in a smooth manner.



And all of the above, government should start awareness campaign about education, science and technology issues. Our main concept of an ideal society should be based on an educated society where living with the books is the part of the culture and experimenting with the technology is the part of the hobbies. Searching new ways for development should be a part of our behaviors.