The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has invited proposals from academia and industry for Technology Development Fund (TDF) to promote newly developed technologies and support viable commercial ideas. Financial support up to Rs14 million will be provided for the successful proposals.

According to documents available with WealthPK, the HEC has sought joint proposals from academia and industry initiated by the higher education institutions through ORIC (offices of research, innovation and commercialisation)/Directorate of Research by December 20, 2022. The HEC has uplifted ‘Made in Pakistan’ ambition through TDF with over 150 products licenced to partner industries.

As per eligibility criteria, the faculty members of public and private sector higher education institutions with relevant commercialisation partners from industry/investor/private/public sector research and development institutes/spin-offs/start-ups at leading incubation centres or accelerators, are eligible to apply for the proposals.

However, preference will be given to the proposals featuring strong industrial collaboration with financial and technical commitment. According to the mission statement, the HEC aims "to help institutions of higher learning to serve as engines for socio-economic development of Pakistan".

Along these lines, the HEC took the initiative to finance proposals of completed interdisciplinary applied research for prototype development and industrial value addition for tech-based product or process development. In this way, the HEC envisages helping the productive minds of Pakistan to impact the economy through the development of new and emerging technologies.

This initiative enabled the research ecosystem within HEIs (higher education institutions)/universities to be available for the industry with financial and technical assistance (IP, licensing, and commercialisation) through academic scientists for the solution of indigenous industrial problems. 

This program has already funded 200 joint academia-industry projects and over 160 have been licensed for mass scaling and commercialization. A good number of such projects have already started yielding revenue, which is shared with all stakeholders. 

Considering these facts, the Planning Commission/CDWP (Central Development Working Party) approved the project's enhanced scope to give the call for proposals. Therefore, PhD faculty members (who have ready research, lab scale, or pre-prototype) should submit the proposals with the consortia of industry and academic partners in the thematic areas of climate change and its impact on the socio-economic situation of Pakistan (agriculture, food security, urban development, pollution, floods, biodiversity conservation, etc.)

The other areas are telecommunication, information and technology/computers (applications in govt. services, health, textile, agriculture and dairy, etc.) engineering sciences, micro-electronics, water, power, energy, and fleet management, biotechnology and allied fields (in health, agriculture, textile, leather and dairy, etc.), material sciences/man-made material (nanotechnology), robotics, defence, and military needs, and any other applied discipline which is conducive to developing products or upscaling the process of industrial level manufacturing.

The proposed funded projects would be expected to develop a product or service which would positively impact, inter alia, the economy, solve a current problem, meet a market need, utilise local raw material, move current products up the value chain, create large-scale employment, and generate revenue.

The proposals need to be academia-industry joint multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional. They need to involve products or services which solve a current problem of industry/society or identify a new opportunity of business that leads to positive cash flows.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk