SWABI, April 5: The University of Illinois, Chicago, and the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology have launched a three-year project to set up a state-of-the-art designing facility. The facility will be the first of its kinds in Pakistan, benefiting both academics and industry through research and collaboration.

The Rs31 million project is entitled ‘Development of computational mechanics infrastructure and human resources for advancing engineering design practices in Pakistan industry’.

Delegates from the Illinois University said at the conclusion of a two-day visit to GIK Institute on Wednesday.

This project is jointly funded by the Higher Education Commission, Ministry of Science and Technology and USAID. This is one of the 11 projects selected out of 112 applications.

Dr Abdullah Sadiq and Dr Muhammad Abid of the GIK Institute and Dr Arif Masud and Dr Ashfaq Khokhar of University of Illinois will execute the project.

During the visit, courses were identified for MS and PhD programmes in detailed discussion with faculty members.

The Academia Industry Linkage: In a meeting with the representatives of industry Dr Masud highlighted the need for collaboration and benefiting from this Computational Mechanics Program.

“The project is a golden opportunity for the industrialists to play their role. The existence industrial infrastructure of Pakistan is inadequate to meet the challenges of the 21st century”, Dr Masud said.

He said both the academia and industry must work together to face the new challenges and with a genuine interaction they could achieve their objectives. The immediate need, he said, for Pakistan was to establish strong design practices and development of indigenous capability. “The academia has to take the lead to train manpower”, he said

Dr Masud said that joint involvement of industry and academic institutions was important for long-term sustained growth. “We also desire to identify research topics of relevance and interest to the local industry,” he said. .