LAHORE: The two-day international seminar on ‘Social Sciences in Service of Humanity’ hosted by the University of Lahore (UOL) concluded here on Thursday. The event was co-sponsored by the Higher Education Commission and UOL. Around 82 social science scholars representing more than 40 universities from Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Balochistan and Sindh, and international scholars from Nepal, Malaysia, the United States, Indonesia and Australia participated in the conference. The inaugural keynote speech was delivered by Prof Dr. Rifaat Hussain, who spoke about the philosophy of social science research calling urgent attention to social sciences as a critical need of the hour to deal with the challenges of modern world. In his welcome address, UOL Chairman Awais Raoof urged the scholars to work collectively towards the peaceful future. The conference was divided into three plenary sessions on day one in which 14 speakers shared their research perspectives under the themes of challenges to regional peace and stability, challenges to democratic governance and South Asian strategic stability. Twelve parallel sessions were run in day two of the conference in which 68 speakers presented their research on different themes ranging from gender, equality and equity, economic growth and poverty eradication, democracy and accountability, strategies to counter terrorism, role of religion in shaping Pakistani society and role of language and literature in promotion of peace and tolerance to name a few. The conference was widely attended by a number of scholars, academicians, researchers and students. In his closing remarks, Punjab University Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Zafar Mueen Nasar applauded the initiative of the UOL on taking the lead to organise a successful conference on the important theme of ‘Social Sciences in Service of Humanity’. He called for establishing social science research collaborations between public and private universities in Pakistan, urging the UOL and the PU to explore avenues for joint collaboration to better serve their immediate communities and Pakistan at large.