Chairman PSF has said that Pakistan needs to promote scientific and research culture to promote technological development and prosperity.
Chairman Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF) Prof Dr Shahid Mahmood Baig has said that Pakistan needs to promote applied scientific and research culture in the country to promote technological development and economic prosperity.
Speaking to the academic and administrative heads at the Government College University (GCU) Lahore here on Saturday, he said 95 percent of the research practised in Pakistan was basic while applied research was the solution to modern technological advances in science and other fields.
Urging Pakistan academia and the centers of higher learning to switch to applied research in order to keep pace with the developed countries, he said our researchers should use novel and integrated approaches that fully enrich existing and new scientific knowledge.
Vice-Chancellor GCU Prof Dr Asghar Zaidi and science and technology Deans were also present on the occasion.
Prof Shahid Baig said there was a realization in government and bureaucracy that the role of science and technology in resolving economic, social and environmental problems was crucial; attaining scientific knowledge and appropriate technologies was a key to achieve economic prosperity.
He said ventilators developed from the funding of Pakistan Science Foundation had reduced their cost to one fifth; the same ventilator that was imported at the cost Rs. 6.5 million, was now being built locally in less than Rs. 1.5 million.
The chairman PSF said the foundation was supporting COVID-9 related research projects on war footings and if any researcher had a potential, and project or research idea, should contact him directly.
He said he was appointed few months ago. He pledged to ensure that there was no delay in the approval of research projects at the foundation after his appointment.
Prof Shahid Baig said our industry lacked confidence on local researchers and faculty, so they all had to work hard collectively and individually to win back their confidence.
Vice Chancellor Prof Zaidi said that the GCU faculty had been doing good quality research despite the scarcity of resources. He hoped that this meeting with the PSF chairman would help GCU’s faculty in understanding the criteria, procedures and technicalities to get research projects funded from the Pakistan Science Foundation and other donor agencies.
Originally published at Nation