Research in Pakistan: Structure, Funding and Results

In Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC) is considered as the centralized body that governs and sets policies for research and development for all educational institutions of higher learning. Availability of research material is one of the main hurdles in the production and creativity of many researchers in all disciplines at university level. Dearth of such facilities demotivates the young researchers, and they start looking for opportunities in the urban countries. HEC has made the first move by starting National Research Program for Universities (NRPU) by promoting the Research & development to meet the current challenges. The aim of this research is to provide the research status in Pakistan, its structure, funding and results. The support of the government to researchers plays a vital role. Some bottlenecks that have been identified are: centralized system, processing delays in approval of funds and projects and slow execution of policies The delays in the approval and release of funds affect the system and interest of researchers. Poor check on policy implementation results in economic loss to the country. HEC is trying to encourage research culture in Pakistan; The HEC supports researchers based on their ability and impact factor with a maximum funding of 20 Million. It provides grants for research projects in the fields of Engineering, Science & Technology as well as humanities and social sciences. The objective is to encourage research in all fields and branches of learning