ISLAMABAD: Higher Education Commission (HEC) on Friday announced that it would double funding under its ‘Thematic Research Grants Programme’, which is aimed at addressing contemporary issues facing the country.

Addressing participants at the concluding ceremony of the two-day International Social Sciences Conference held at the commission’s premises, HEC Chairman Dr Mukhtar Ahmed said with the start of the upcoming fiscal year, grant under the thematic research programme would be doubled.

At present, the HEC has fixed Rs50 million under the research grants programme.

“Research scholars, who have theoretical, conceptual, methodological and policy orientation background, may apply under the programme. The research projects may belong to any of the social sciences and humanities disciplines or may be inter-disciplinary in nature. Groups or individual researchers from public and private sector universities can submit their proposals against different themes,” Dr Mukhtar said.

The conference concluded with a pledge by the academicians and researchers working from various fields of social sciences that special focus would be given to research that has direct relevance to socio-economic challenges faced by the society.

Published in Dawn May 16th , 2015

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