Daily Times

Prime Minister Imran Khan, on December 21, 2018, announced the establishment of the Islamabad National University at the PM House. He formally initiated the conversion of the PM House into the Islamabad National University (INU). The PM stressed the importance of ‘quality education’ for a nation’s ‘progress and development’. The PM also approved the establishment of the Institute of Advanced Studies in the first phase of the university.

Addition of one more university in the Islamabad Capital Territory is attractive for people, in line with the ‘austerity drive’ launched by the current government. However, addition of a new university in the list of existing universities with similar infrastructure, human capital, and the same working model will not make any difference. Throughout the world universities are expected to change to match changes in their host environment. In the developed world, value of higher education is often questioned for resources expended, while in developing countries educational institutions are particularly valued for the contribution they can make towards national development. Current studies of economic growth that emphasise the role of universities and other institutions of higher education have increasing focused on technology transfer.

Historically, universities having been a venue of many social movements led to social activism. While universities were concerned with educating the elite at their early formation, their role is constantly expanding. With expanding opportunities brought by the Industrial Revolution, universities began to make more direct contributions on a social and economic level. Starting in the second half of the 20th century, with a reliance on public funding of higher educational institutions, universities found themselves under enormous pressure to make a return to society.

As we say that we now live in a knowledge economy, role of universities has become central. Unfortunately, Pakistani universities are still far behind in service to the community and the nation at large, as university education is very expensive and only accessible to a very small community, particularly in developing countries like Pakistan.

As a university is an institution of higher learning, and knowledge is its core business, its principal mission is generation, dissemination, advancement, and application of knowledge in the service of society at local, regional and international levels. Government should focus on making the INU a state-of-the-art research university. Research is one of the most important human engagements. As universities confront their mandated responsibilities of teaching, research and community service, they should value the opportunity offered to undertake research as a stimulating intellectual pursuit.

Innovative research and technology is needed to transform countries like Pakistan from reliance on exploitation of natural resources to technological innovation as the basis for development. Finland, for example, has managed to transform its economy, which only a few years ago, was heavily dependent on natural resources, to one of the most buoyant economies in the world, topping in most indices of global competitiveness. The open secret for this signal success is Finland’s focused policies in reforming education, research and innovation, carried in tandem with strong support for entrepreneurship.

Universities, worldwide, are charged with responsibilities of teaching, research and community work. It is imperative that universities continuously work to simultaneously improve performance of these three main terms of reference. While the teaching part is well defined and formalised, quite often, research and community work responsibilities are less structured, although still essential.

As far as research is concerned, the aim is to increase research output of high quality that has potential relevance to national and societal development objectives. Higher education institutes (HEIs) today are undertaking heavy investments in order to create such improved research profiles. As scholarly communities, HEIs continuously pride themselves of the quality and excellence of research, which foster a culture of academic enquiry and innovation. For research activities of an HEI to be meaningful, there is need to maintain a focused approach in core research disciplines, by increasingly facilitating a more collaborative and inter-disciplinary approach to research initiatives. As the pace of scientific discovery and innovation accelerates, there is an urgent cultural need to reflect thoughtfully about these epic changes and challenges.

Innovative research and technology is needed to transform countries like Pakistan from reliance on exploitation of natural resources to technological innovation as the basis for development

The challenges of the 21st century require new interdisciplinary collaborations. As interest in interdisciplinary research continues to increase, HEIs still don’t have answers to critical questions about the best ways to support and encourage collaboration across the disciplines. Research has a key role in enhancing a country’s strength in creative practice, and in underpinning and advancing knowledge. Any university’s academic identity, as a seat of knowledge creation, is profoundly influenced by the importance placed upon its research activity, which should sustain a wide diversity of efforts from its academic staff members. A carefully blended assortment including basic, applied, multi and interdisciplinary and practice-based research should be devised, as is appropriate to the research institution depending on the adequacy of staff and facilities.

In order to achieve the ideals set above in an efficient manner that maximises impact, a ‘research strategy’ is needed for the INU. The strategy will assist to increase research output of high quality that has relevance to national needs. The strategy will aid researchers at the INU to orient themselves well within the university in a harmonised effort, thereby expanding the university’ research base. It will also allow the university to develop a tradition that links excellent research to the needs of the business community and society as a whole.

In order to develop international excellence in core research strengths, there is a need to develop a strategic approach, that defines step-by-step strategic research activities in line with national and international priorities, in order to increase the number of staff engaged in internationally reputable research, influence, collaboration, financial support and returns. Given the importance of research as a key element in the university mission, and given the importance of a framework to guide its operation, this article is in essence the ‘University Research Strategy’ to outline that framework.

It is the need of the time to have an assemblage of procedures and norms, which should be framed together with the view of maximising collective efforts of all academic staff members to harness the research genius and potential that may exist within the university, to achieve a maximum impact.

For excellent research programmes to thrive, the university will need to develop an efficient support framework, with a good research infrastructure and clear guidance, to allow researchers to focus their efforts on their work, while encouraging collaborative work, both internally and externally. The INU, as a research university, should consist of ‘centres of excellence’ for areas of research needed for the development of the country, as a ‘one-window operation’ managed by a central ‘Research Management Cell (RMC)’ at the university.

The emphasis of research coordination is to create opportunities across disciplines for interaction of researchers on issues of common interest, while providing necessary support that emerging ideas stand a good chance of securing funds both internally and externally. A literature survey revealed that recently two international universities, Univesiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Malaysia, and the Cardiff University, UK, adopted this model, and achieved remarkable results in promoting interdisciplinary research as well as enhancing their international ranking. The UTM established ‘Research Alliances’ to bring coordination between different departments/disciplines, and the Cardiff University achieved similar results by establishing ‘Research Clusters’.

It is, therefore, suggested that under the umbrella of RMC, different research alliances should be established at the INU to ensure proper coordination between departments, research groups and researchers. ‘Inter disciplinarity across the Breadth of Research Activity’ strategy will help to deliver world-class research ambition by supporting exciting and innovative research by high quality researchers, who can work at the interface of disciplines, and solve complex problems that are relevant to society and the environment.

This model is currently lacking in Pakistani universities, and research carried out at these universities fails to deliver, in true spirit, in generation, dissemination, advancement and application of knowledge in the service of society at local, regional and international levels. A ‘Research Alliance’ (RA) is a formal and a strong association of existing centres of excellence, laboratories, formal and informal groups of individual professors, and established research groups within the Institute (possibly involving outside parties). An RA aims to conduct world-class, leading edge research, right through the whole value chain, including knowledge discovery, dissemination and commercialisation within focused areas, which by nature are multi-disciplinary. Government must gather best minds, currently working in different universities, in order to establish centres of excellence for all disciplines at the INU.

The writer is an associate professor of chemical engineering