Editors Note: Dr. Tauseef Aized is a professor at the University of Engineering and Technology (UET), Lahore and a research fellow at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of STEP.
With the advent of the industrial revolution, the traditional role of higher learning institutions has been transformed from simply educating young people to creating and disseminating knowledge to the whole society. Every higher education institution needs enormous financial resources that, in our system, are typically provided through public funding. The state demands a return on its investment beyond traditional manpower development. Thus, increasingly, universities bear the responsibility of interacting with the entire society to demonstrate positive gains. Currently, public sector higher education institutions in Pakistan get reasonable levels of state funding, but this state of affairs will not last forever. The time is approaching when these institutions will be pressed to generate their own funding beyond the usual increase of the fees charged to students. Under these demanding circumstances, the only recourse for our universities will be industrial funding, especially in the pure and applied sciences. Academia-industry collaborations, which are common in developed countries but non-existent in Pakistan, are a win-win prospect for both universities and industries. By developing workable industrial linkages, universities can not only raise money to function, but also can acquire a good deal of skill and knowledge. This is probably the best way to contribute towards society as well.
The modus operandi for establishing a university-industry liaison should be framed by universities and they should not wait for industries and other related organizations to initiate such relationships. The very first step to achieve this goal is the development of specialized skill groups inside universities. These groups must work, in their respective areas of interest, to properly understand industrial problems and propose solutions. In addition, every institution must specify its own areas of interests, for which it would strive to gain expertise and excellence because in the absence of truly credible expertise, no industrial linkage is possible. Furthermore, the higher education institutions must initiate aggressive campaigns for the development of industrial linkages. The universities must be willing to work and solve practical problems, even without any grants from industries, to gain the confidence of industrial collaborators by delivering good results. This is the key to successful industrial liaisons.
Almost every university in Pakistan requires its undergraduate and graduate students to carry out a final term project. In the majority of cases, these projects are meaningless, because students (at times with the aid of faculty), copy or repeat something that has already been done. This practice must be stopped and the concept and scope of the projects must be inline with the needs of the society. If universities are successful in revitalizing these project assignments, it would be a great step towards adding value to the society.
The universities should develop and conduct industry-related short and medium-term courses to attract industrial staff. These courses can generate money and form a good platform for initiating long term collaborations. The selection of these courses should be dictated by the requirements of industry near the academic institution. For instance, an institution based in Gujranwala should consider organizing short course focused on the metal industry as there is a lot of related industrial activity there. Another good choice is organizing short computer-literacy courses, because computer-literacy is now a pre-requisite for many jobs.
The universities must also consider establishing spin-off organizations within the premises of the universities. These organizations can develop prototype products to market their expertise. The technical expertise and project management skills required to conduct these projects can be developed either locally or can be acquired through foreign linkages. The concept of science and technology parks has matured in the developed world and the time has come when we should plan and work rigorously for developing such facilities.
In the end, industrial sector must also appreciate the benefits of university liaisons. Every industry faces technical and managerial problems which can be solved through interaction with higher education and research institutions. Industries should neither consider this interaction a waste of time and resources nor an act of ‘charity’. Academia-industry interactions are equally beneficial to both sides as they can result in higher productivity and improved quality of industrial products and services.
In my view, the primary reason the industry-academic link hasn’t formed in Pakistan, is financial. From a company’s point of view, investment in research is a long-term prospect. For it to make sense to invest over long time horizons, companies need to have sufficiently secure capital reserves. There are very few industries with that capacity in Pakistan.
I feel technology start-ups may be much more fertile hunting ground for university-industry collaboration — Umar’s SCI is an excellent example. These types of incubators should be encouraged.
Finally, although the government is cash-strapped too, programs in the US like the DoD’s STTRs and NSF’s GOALI program help spur university-industry links quite effectively.
In my experience, research collaboration with industrial partners is usually awkward because the cultures of academia and industry are very different. It usually takes a considerable amount of patience from both sides to persist with the relationship long enough for a workable relationship to form: ironing out intellectual property issues, identifying problems that are both interesting to the academic and relevant to the industrialist, etc.
It is utmost important for an economically constrained country (like Pakistan) to optimally exploit their academic resources for industry. In my opinion, academia-industry bridging may be completed through a steering body of volunteer industrialists working in collaboration with HEC. HEC may launch a web portal containing project proposals (in standard formulation) approved by the industrial steering body (there might be various focus groups depending upon the industry types). The academia may opt to complete any of these projects and present prototypes. Initially, the academia might have to bear the cost of prototype development. Successful prototypes would have chance to get industrial funding. All developed countries applied Triple Helix Model for this kind of bridging.
University-industry linkage is a broad concept and its meaning may be different for students, professors, university, and industry.
For students in their last year of education (undergrad, masters or PhD), this linkage generally means that representatives from industries visit the university campus, followed by on campus recruiting. A university with a good reputation is likely to attract a large group of industry representatives. It is in the interest of a university that its graduates find good jobs. In Pakistan, universities do make effort to attract industries, through alumni or other contacts, to facilitate finding jobs for their graduates.
For professors, the goal is to publish and/or patent original research and it is generally the university’s responsibility to market this research. Conversely, industry can bring problems to the professors.
Thus, a university’s role is to provide mechanisms for marketing the intellectual property and to provide incubation for promising startups.
The unit of relationship is professor(s)/students-industry and not university-industry. In Pakistan, professor-industry linkages are minimal. Further, universities are not aggressive in marketing their intellectual property or providing startup incubation.
For industry, maintaining a liaison with professors and a university is useful due to several reasons. First, their goal is to solve a particular problem which professors or their students might help with in a timely and cost effective way. Second, they are looking to recruit bright students. It will be very useful to get a perspective from industry representatives in Pakistan on the type of problems they encounter and whether universities can help in their problem solving.
Industries are in the goal of making money and they prefer to deal with competent professors who can solve their problems. The converse is not true. Professors and universities have to communicate with industry folks who may not be very competent. Moreover, professors need to realize that not every linkage may produce novel research and some projects can be best handled through masters or undergrad students.
University Industry portal (www.uip.lcci.org.pk)is an unique effort by Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LLCI).Institute of Research Promotion is managing this project.Researchers/Scientists/Innovators from any field of Pakistan can share their innovative ideas on the portal for the benefit of Pakistan.It will help to promote their idea and commercialization/transfer of technology from universities.All are invited to join this portal.Universities are now becoming enterprising and earning billion of dollars from it in west.Now we should focus on the applied type of research.For more information kindly contact me at any time in Pakistan. Mujahid Ali 0321.369 2874 or email me on mujahid@irp.edu.pk or visit on http://www.irp.edu.pk
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