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LAHORE, Feb 18: The University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) has won the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) award for science and technology in the category of "institutions having achieved outstanding contribution to a given discipline".
The UAF has earned this distinction out of 72 applicant institutions, who had claimed to making outstanding contribution to a given scientific field.The award worth $100,000, a trophy and a certificate has been decided by the selection committee of the 10th Edition of the IDB prizes for Science and Technology.
Congratulating UAF Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Islamic Development Bank Group president Dr Ahmad Mohamed Ali has stated in the award letter that he hoped that the award of this prize would encourage other science and technology institutions in Pakistan to strive for excellence.
The letter stated that the award will be presented to the university vice-chancellor by the IDB Board of Governor's chairman at a special ceremony to be held on the occasion of IDB BoG's 37th meeting in Khartoum, Sudan, on April 3-4 this year.
Talking to Dawn at Dawn Agri Expo, UAF VC Prof Khan said the university had been selected for the prize on the basis of its performance assessed on wide range of parameters during the last five years. He said the IDB assessed and selected UAF on the basis of its research publications, citation, foreign funding and research funding, exchange programmes, quality assurance criteria, PhD faculty ratio and faculty-student ratio.
Prof Khan said the university had 487 impact factor publications that had over 3,000 citations. Some five years ago, the UAF publications had around 500 citations. The university has patented a number of products.
It may be mentioned that the UAF is working with Rs1.3 billion recurring budget as compared to Rs5.5 billion recurring budget of the Punjab University. This is the fifth prize given to a university in Pakistan among all Islamic countries in the world. Prior to this 10th annual award, two prizes were won by HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, Karachi and one each by Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology, Punjab University and the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology.
