The University Industry Technology Support Program (UITSP) of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) is an important step towards fostering a high-level of tangible cooperation between academia and industry. This cooperation is to capitalize on emerging international demands for products and processes in discrete and continuous manufacturing that shall contribute to the national economy.
This program is focused on the industrial sectors where the country is already a major contributor to world trade. It focuses on harnessing the potential of highly competitive sectors for international trade which needs development both for local and international consumption. The focused sector wise identification of products and processes in discrete and continuous, as well as import and export, trends is available from the public domain local and international statistical data.
The UITSP proposes that researchers, preferably with PhD degrees and affiliation with international professional bodies, collaborate with the local industry involved in discrete and continuous manufacturing for tangible results in terms of improvement of product and processes leading to decreased import of raw material and increased export of the finished product and processes. The products and processes needing improvement should ideally be in priority areas relevant to national needs for socio-economic development of the country.
The UITSP is awarded on competitive merit by the HEC for high-level and promising industrial research projects of direct relevance to current needs of the industry to be carried out in Pakistan by creative scientists of public-sector universities and degree-awarding institutions in collaboration with professionals from the local industry. The purpose of these grants is to promote scientific research in applied sciences in the country and to strengthen the indigenous capacity for industrial competition in the world market.
The research grant will be provided for a maximum period of two years with a budget of up to Rs. 6 million.
Objectives
The increased globalization of trade, formulation of policies and procedures to streamline the globalization trend and application of international standards by national, international and professional organizations has increased the trade competitiveness and thus has opened new avenues for worldwide industrial sector. To avail these new opportunities, the local industry and the universities at home shall be competitive and compliant with the international standards. The result of this collaboration exercise between industry and academia should be tangible and should reflect in the Gross National Product of the country. Generally, applied sciences section of the academia and discrete and continuous manufacturing sector of the industry needs high level of cooperation to improve products and processes in order to compete worldwide.
UITSP of the Higher Education Commission is an important step towards fostering high level of tangible cooperation between academia and industry. This cooperation will assist in capitalizing on emerging international demand for products and processes in discrete and continuous manufacturing that shall contribute to national economy.
