HEC committed to capacity building of varsities: Chairperson

"The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is committed to capacity building of universities and building centres of excellence in all fields of national importance." This was stated by Dr Tariq Banuri, Chairperson, HEC here at a consultative meeting of HEC and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) on CERN-SESAME collaboration.
He called for active collaboration between universities and other national institutions in order to build national capacity and strengthen each department and institution, including through increased involvement of Pakistani universities in such international endeavours as CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire), and SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East).
The meeting was also attended by Dr Hafeez Hoorani, Director General, National Centre for Physics, Dr SM Javed Akhtar, Member (CAC), Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), Dr Sohail Ahmad Janjua, Director, (CSC), PAEC, heads of different departments from various universities, and the ED and DGs of HEC, said a press release issued here on Wednesday.
The participants stressed the need to promote High Energy Physics through collaboration and networking among subject experts, clear delineation of the role of each institution, e.g., through the revival of learned societies, and the development of a consensus programme.
Dr Banuri said that the pursuit of excellence in science subjects is a national agenda of highest importance.
In his remarks, Dr Arshad Ali said that multidisciplinary collaboration is required for excellence in science disciplines. He said that certain areas must be identified for joint collaboration and a timeframe must be defined for completion of collaborative projects. He said that clusters need to be created to work on a certain programme under pre-agreed milestones.
He emphasised that opportunities offered under these programmes must be publicly available. He revealed that meetings will be held for consultation on other science subjects as well.
Dr Hafeez Hoorani, Dr Muhammad Latif and representatives of universities also expressed their views on the occasion.
It was decided that NCP, PAEC and National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) will develop a website for public access to information about High Energy Physics so that relevant people may benefit from the initiatives. It was further decided that for development of a primary framework, a group of five physics experts will develop a proposal in the coming week and come up with a complete plan of action. Furthermore in near future, groups for other fields like biology, chemistry etc. will be constituted.-PR