The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) in collaboration with the Higher Education Commission (HEC) organized a roundtable here on Monday to strengthen the academia-industry linkages.
The roundtable was participated by Rectors, Deans, Directors and other representatives of various universities including Nust, Comsats, Bahria, Fast, Quaid-e-Azam, Ripha, Foundation, Institute of Space Technology, Szabist, Cust, IIUI, National Skilled University, Pieas, Federal Urdu and Air University and representatives of various local industries.
The representatives of both sides discussed short, medium and long-term goals to improve academia-industry linkages. They also discussed the key challenges that should be addressed to improve the industry’s reliance on academia for applied research to enhance industrial productivity and produce demand-driven students for industry.
It was highlighted during the roundtable that HEC should further encourage universities to adopt its already approved 3+1 academic criterion to enable students to spend 3 years in universities and one year in industries for degrees in order to provide them practical experience of industrial functions.
Speaking at the occasion, Executive Director HEC Dr. Shaista Sohail said that the HEC has started a series of interactive meetings with Chambers of Commerce & Industry to improve academia-industry linkages that would help tailor the research initiatives of universities to solve the industrial problems and produce skilled human resource for industry that would ultimately improve economic growth of the country. She also gave a presentation about the various grants being provided by HEC to universities for research initiatives for the benefit of industry.INP
