HEC, BC to cooperate higher education promotion

ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the British Council signed a Letter of Intent on Monday to collaborate for the promotion of International Higher Education Knowledge Exchange.

Executive Director, HEC Dr. Sohail Naqvi and Country Director, British Council Pakistan David Martin signed the agreement.

International Knowledge Exchange initiatives at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have proved that knowledge exchange work has direct impact on social and economic development of any country Therefore many universities in the UK and Pakistan are now engaged in knowledge exchange collaborations.

The project will cover four areas of work. The first one is knowledge exchange (KE) national strategy development support, which aims to support HEC to develop a national strategy and five-year strategic plan on higher education sector KE programme.

DISKE (Developing institutional Strategy for knowledge Exchange) grants will embed the concept of KE at the institutional level.

The HEC and the BC will work with leaders (including Vice Chancellors, Deans, Registrars and Heads of Department) in Pakistan's HEIs to develop KE strategies in collaboration with their UK partner institutions and implement the strategy in their respective institutions.

Then there is development of a training programme for the staff of newly established Office of Research Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC) at universities in partnership with a UK institution.

A network of those UK and Pakistani partner institutions will be created, which specialise in a specific academic-industry sector

This network of universities will showcase successful collaboration on knowledge exchange between universities and the business or social sector.

Chairperson HEC, Dr. Javaid R. Laghari was also present on the occasion.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011