ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The stress laid by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) on research in universities has started to pay rich dividends as research publications by the higher education institutions in ISI-indexed journals in 2006 have shown a manifold increase.

Compared to research publications by universities in 2002 which amounted to 788 for the whole year, the figure has increased to 1,636 articles and research and development organisations by December 30, 2006, showing a rapid increase in research culture.

Quaid-i-Azam University leads the group with 312 publications, followed by the University of Karachi with 226 out of which 149 publications are by HEJ Institute of Chemistry. The remaining 77 are from the Department of Botany.

Aga Khan University Karachi is in third place with 189 publications, the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad has produced 137 articles while the University of Punjab is in fifth place with 94 publications.

Engineering universities of the country are not doing so well in the genre of research as NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, has no publications in 2006 while National University of Science and Technology (Nust) has 21 publications to its credit.—APP