SWABI, May 16: The European Commission has agreed to provide a grant of Rs57.750 million (750,000 euros) for the Asia-Link Project to strengthen higher education in Engineering Design and Manufacture in Asia, Dawn has learnt. The project proposal was submitted by Dr Abid, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, in collaboration with his partners from other Asian and European universities.

The project would be entirely financed by the European Commission and is one of the 11 projects in this category being funded by it, according to sources.

They said that the European Commission had allocated 1,046,766 euros for the 12 projects out of which the Asia- Link Project would get the lion’s share of 750,000 euros.

According to the sources, the project is aimed at strengthening higher education in underdeveloped countries of Asia and the target groups are teachers, postgraduate students, engineers and scientists.

In Europe, the education of engineering design and manufacture is quite developed but in Asia it is not according to the demand and the interaction between European and Asian universities would be beneficial for the latter.

The sources said that an Asia Link Seminar would be organized to gather knowledge from different partners of the project.

The duration of the project was 36 months, the sources said and added that the project partners included the GIK Institute, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka; Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, and Northwestern Polytechnic University, Xian (China), University of Strathclyde, Glasgow (UK) and Troyes University of Technology, France.