PESHAWAR: Industry and academia agreed on Saturday to launch joint ventures and initiatives to strengthen ties between industry and academia.

They described mutual collaboration as essential to capitalize on the skills of university graduate students to overcome the problem of rising unemployment.

To this end, a committee of six members was formed

Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) President Hasnain Khurshid Ahmad will lead the committee. Other members of the body include Dr Shaista Sohail, Executive Director of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Dr Shahid Niaz Khan from academia, Hina Akram, Dr Syed Asim Shah and S Minhajuddin from the world Business.

The agreement was reached during a round table on “the links between industries and universities” organized jointly by SCCI and HEC at the House of the Chamber.

It aimed to strengthen links between industries and universities.

SCCI President Hasnain Khurshid Ahmad chaired the session while HEC Executive Director Dr. Shaista Sohail acted as a moderator during the conference.

Senior member of HEC and former vice president of planning, Dr. Muhammad Ikram of HEC participated in the conference via video link.

CSIC Vice President, Javed Akhtar, Executive Member Ghulam Hussain, S Minhajuddin, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Government Secretary for Agriculture, Dr. of Innovation and Commercialization (ORIC) from various universities in the public and private sectors, nominated representatives of departments, traders, industrialists and representatives of relevant stakeholders were present.

The participants identified the gaps and obstacles that hindered the links between universities and industries and formulated a number of ideas and proposals to solve all these problems.

They urged HEC to take pragmatic steps to make financial and technical resources available to ensure quality research in universities, in addition to expanding mutual collaboration between universities and industries.

The head of SCCI during his speech pointed out that coordination needs to be improved between industries and universities.

Dr. Akram Shaikh, through a video link during the conference, also focused on strengthening mutual collaboration between universities and industries by launching joint ventures, professional training programs and other actions.

He suggested that the CSIC and the universities sign a memorandum of understanding and form a joint body to carry out and implement all the proposals, as well as strive to resolve all the problems that were major obstacles to collaboration. between industries and universities.

Dr. Israr also spoke on this occasion and endorsed the proposals of the participants regarding the strengthening of links between universities and industries and assured that the provincial government and his department would provide all possible support.