Competitiveness Support Fund (CSF) and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) will jointly support initiatives to promote knowledge-based economic development and ensure long-term economic growth. Both the organisations would co-operate with each other through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed here on August 1.
The research at Pakistan's universities has been purely academic, with little focus on applied research. Over the last three years, the HEC has had success investing in research and development resulting in marked increase in the number of research papers and international articles published by Pakistani academics.
However, during the design of the CSF project, a lack of linkages between local industry and academia was identified as one of the major obstacles stifling innovation and technology-based growth in Pakistan. One of CSF's main objectives, therefore, is to develop and support linkages between academia and industry for knowledge-based enterprise development.
CSF will provide matching grants to the academic community for projects that commercialise their research. It will also help them partner with the business community to start and develop new enterprises and will encourage the private sector and local governments to contribute financing to relevant research.
The HEC and CSF together will develop and implement a monitoring and evaluation system to ensure the successful and timely completion of the projects selected from the incubators. Finally, CSF will explore the possible financial involvement of other relevant bilateral institutions to share the cost of the relevant projects.