The Quality Of Pakistani Research

Good research requires not only coming up with innovative techniques but also needs to address industrial scale up factor. Also instead of joining in the race to publish maximum number of articles researchers,academicians need to be motivated enough to do original work. Author has taken quite a balanced approach towards presenting the current state of affairs,reasonable suggestions are also given. As opposed to what oak said I agree with the author that it is time HEC lays down stringent guidelines. A good research culture in the long run will help strengthen ph.d programs.why wait n watch scores of people produce work of low quality? Those ppl will gradually find out where they stand n it would be better if they contribute something worthwhile with correct guidance at the right time.

Ilyas Sahib

Well thought through, insightful comments. A credit to you. Just a quick point:

Of-course Pakistani research needs more focus and direction. But to establish a culture of research requires, by itself, a large degree of wasted input. With time quality research will naturally stratify itself out, if the will to establish a culture is there. So then the question, would not necessarily be to clamp down on `bad` research, but to offer incentive for quality.

But if you were to advocate a position of witholding funds for research, the danger is that the beaurocratic approach often found in Pakistan may destroy any such embryonic beginnings of such a culture altogether.

JK

Musa

Dear author,
I think you must distinguish between education in basic sciences versus research. It is absolutely necessary to impart good, fundamental science education at the school and undergraduate level. This gives the requisite grounding so the student can go on to work on anything else. I must disagree with you however that you need to have research work ongoing in basic sciences with your country to make possible advances in applied sciences. Since science is not bounded by national borders, it makes no sense for a 3rd world country to waste its resources producing Ph.D (diploma) holders in basic sciences so there can be a culture of research work. If you look at korea, taiwan or even japan, R&D in engg & applied sciences came first and once they had developed the necessary base that would require heavy investment in fundamental work, they started emphasizing the latter. There is no need to reinvent the wheel.
My own experience with research scientists and engineers is that a Ph.D is not synonymous with innovation and cleverness. Once you have the grasp of the fundamentals and have good problem solving skills, a very good undergraduate education is sufficient in most cases.

Wonderful and interesting. I have found some resonance of your thoughts when i was trying to look for some academic and research oriented material on Kashmir by Pakistani writers.
Would love to get in touch to discuss about it. Please contact me via my website.
www.kashmiraffairs.org

Re: # 3

Just a brief comment on venture capitalism in Pakistan. It has just started and we have a few venture capital firms as well. TMT and TiE are a couple of examples.

TiE: http://www.tie.org/
TMT: www.tmtventures.net/

Moreoevr, when I was in Pakistan I wanted to extend my undergrad final year project and was quite amazed to know that there were a couple of people interested in providing the seed capital: one of them being a Khandani textile exporter. I even worked with him till prototype was completed but afterwards I had to move abroad for further studies. That incident showed me that people are willing to invest if they find out that idea is going to bring them material benefits. No investors are that dumb to lose any oppurtunity to earn some money...

On another note, I believe in hitech business, boundaries are not very important. You can get funding from a venture capital based in silicon valley and use it to develop a product in Lahore. Although this will need good contacts in both the places. So we don`t need to limit ourselves to find local venture capital firms.

Ilyas I wholeheartedly agree with your statement that we cannot ignore pure sciences and also support that the quality of research within Pakistan should be emphasized using some of the excellent suggestions you have in your article. But the fact remains that the HEC needs to look at this problem holistically rather than merely thump their chests in front of Gen Musharraf or any other higher power about the 1000 Phds they supported/produced with the billions given to them. As you mention in your post, the problem starts much earlier than the Phd level and it doesn`t end with them merely achieving their degree.

The pure sciences curricula in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology needs to be strengthened at the undergraduate level with better books, better teachers and better labs. Kids in high school (8-12 grade) need to be exposed to various scientific, technological and social fields for them to be motivated enough to pursue graduate work in the field of their choice/interest. It is to be expected (required?) that the current crop of graduate students financed by the HEC would become teachers at the undergraduate level in various colleges and universities of Pakistan.

The other end of the problem still remains- what do you do with 1000 or even 500 additional Phd graduates every year? Will all of them become teachers and professors or does the HEC have any plan to actually employ them and reap the benefit of the nation`s investment? I have not checked the distribution of pure vs. applied science scholarships that the HEC has been giving out for the last few years. In either case I desperately hope that there is some sort of plan to make use of all these people when they are done with their education.

As you may well recall certain smaller schemes for foreign scholarships were launched in the 80`s as well but what happened to the few hundred graduates that used public money to fund their education? Has the HEC tracked them down? Even if some of them came back to teach/work in Pakistan how do we rate their contribution or do a cost/benefit analysis of the public`s investment?

Referring back to my post #2, if you get collaborations from some of the most profitable industries in Pakistan - Telecommunications, Textiles, Oil and Gas, Banking and Finance, Automotive, and last but not least the Education industry, to fund graduate students and fellows in both the pure and applied aspects of their respective fields you can start getting tangible benefits for the huge public investment in higher education. We wouldn`t need VC to fund these collaborations if the HEC jump started these research programs with public money and then subsequently the government can provide tax benefits and other incentives to these corporations for their investments/collaborations with universities. In addition, with these collaborations an employment chain can be created for the hundreds and thousands of pure and applied scientists/technologists that the HEC is aiming to produce. Unless and until adequate (and publicly beneficial) employment in and out of academia is provided to all these people all the noble intentions of the HEC and the government will fail.

I appreciate your thoughts on this issue. Feel free to discuss this further via email: zamanov at gmail dot com.

Charlie and Zamanov,
Let me respond to your common point first, the practicality of research. I think you will agree with me that it is not possible for the HEC, or any other agency for that matter, to scrutinize and fairly judge the degree of practicality of anybody`s research beforehand. Research areas change and the final thesis rarely ever turns out to be exactly what the author envisioned at the outset. Even if the research work is clearly outlined at the outset (rarely ever the case) a fair assessment will require a specialist in that particular area, and if we had that many specialists available to start with our problem of lack of brain/manpower may not be as big as it is.
The only feasible means by which a certain degree of applicability and usefulness of research work can be judged is by a broad classification into the pure and applied sciences. By emphasizing and being slanted in favor of engineering education the HEC is accomplishing just that. But you will agree with me that by merely funding applied research and leaving people in the pure sciences to fend for themselves we would be as guilty of neglect as not funding studies into social science (as Zamanov just pointed out). Work in the applied sciences certainly does not materialize out of thin air, but is based on pure sciences. And we certainly lag behind in the pure sciences, perhaps, more even than in engineering. It is my personal observation that one of the reasons many Pakistanis have a hard time getting started, settled and up to speed in their PhD work is because our knowledge of basic sciences like Mathematics and Physics is nowhere near where it should be. An undergraduate degree from even one of Pakistan`s elite institutes that Zamanov mentioned hardly prepares you for the rigors of grad school in the US. In my view there is most certainly a need for funding studies in areas other than engineering.

Zamanov`s ideas about a technology incubators that operate with the support of industry are certainly good. I believe the PSEB is offering its support for technology incubators in Lahore. I do not know though how much industry involvement there is. Entrepreneurship like that requires the availability of venture capitalists (VCs) of which there are few in Pakistan, actually none that I know of.

Some great points Ilyas...This obsession with producing ``1000 Phd`s a year``, in effect emphasizing quantity over quality is going to lead us no where. I fully agree with Charlie in #1 that there must be emphasis on applicability of research to various industries in Pakistan. This does not mean that the HEC should not fund theoretical research, but there should be a weighted approach where a majority of funding goes to applied technology fields that can show a short-term benefit to Pakistani industry or generate local entrepreneurship, and a smaller proportion going to theoretical fields.

I believe the HEC should involve large corporations in Pakistan to set up partnerships with Universities and even individual departments that do research to actually get some benefit from the research. For example, PSO and the National Refinery can collaborate with energy researchers at KU, NED, UET, or NUST. Pakistan Ordinance Factory and PIA can collaborate with mechanical engineering researchers at NED, GIK, etc. The textile groups can team up with TIP and University in Faisalabad.
The HEC can fund the applied tech research for the first couple of years with contractual agreements that some product will be delivered to these corporations in 2-3 years. This deliverable could be in the shape of a prototype design, a software product or a leading edge testing process. This concept can be emulated in the fields of medicine, agriculture, transportation, computer science, and even in the financial sector.

Once these programs get off the ground the HEC can disassociate itself from the direct funding and let the corporations take over. The corporations can then be full partners in research; for their financial contribution they can have labs or Departments named after them (PTCL Department of Communication Engineering, PSO Department of Chemical Engineering, GSK Department of Pharmacology) or just fund graduate students doing research in their chosen fields. This will also provide an employment track for these researchers, otherwise where will the ``1000 Phd`` go if no major corporation will hire them other than wasting away every one`s resources in some government desk job or even worse if they move to a foreign country.

The beauty of this process is that it will breed healthy competition among universities and researchers to vie for choice collaborations and will actually deliver something tangible that will benefit Pakistan.

The HEC needs to get its act straight regarding what it wants out of the billions it is pouring into mindless `research`, otherwise this will go down in history as yet another Pakistani scam of gigantic proportions.

Please let`s also not lose sight of HEC funding research and scholarship in the social sciences and arts. God knows we need more of that in our country otherwise we just might become a nation of science and technology!

Thanks again for bringing this issue to light and best of luck for your doctoral research Mr Ilyas.

Good article...

However, I must add a few bits here...

If research is done for the sake of research, it is a luxury. Rich countries can afford it. Poor countries like Pakistan should be a bit more selective in choosing their research focus. And the research done by Pakistan should be objective enough. It should be done on the topics which are important according to our needs. For example, too much theoratical research which doesn`t give short term material benefits is useless for Pakistan. The papers which are cited the most in a domain lie on the theoratical end. And it takes several years for that work to be translated to something being applied in industry. So may be, in Pakistan status symbol for researchers shouldn`t be number of citations only. It should also include the effect of their research on Pakistani society.

Let`s take another example. Researcher ``A`` worked well on a subject that will come to life after 20 years. And his paper was cited 100 times. Resarcher ``B`` worked on a topic and ended up starting a new hitech company based in Lahore. Although topic of researcher ``B`` didn`t get any citations, it brought money, jobs and a culture of entrepreneurship. For me, ``A`` and ``B`` are simply not comparable. I have a lot of respect for both of them.

I hope I was clear in my point.