Webinar on “Writing A Successful Funding Proposal to bring Academia, Industry, and Government Closer”
Bhawani Shakar Chowdhary, Chair for IEEE Karachi Section & M. Rafay Shaikh, Section Student Representative for IEEE Karachi Section
IEEE Karachi Section has started talk series on “Indigenous Research Outcome to Impact Industry and Society”. Under this initiative, a collaborative event was jointly organized on 9th April 2021 by IEEE Karachi Section, HEC, Lahore College Women University, Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam, and IOBM Karachi. In the opening remarks, Prof. Dr. Bushra Mirza, Vice-Chancellor of LCWU appreciated the efforts of IEEE in arranging this seminar. She said such knowledge of experienced speakers will help young researchers to write good research proposals for funding and research grants. Such events will be very productive and fruitful in the long run to develop collaborative research. Prof. BS Chowdhry, Chair of IEEE Karachi Section introduced the main speaker of the event Dr. Iftikhar Ali, Associate Professor in the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro having JCR impact factor of more than 200 and 40 peer-reviewed international publications and books, who talked about “writing successful funding project”.
His talk highlighted the importance of getting funding in the current scenario for the faculty and students, the general contents of the research proposal for funding, and various ways of improving the proposal to increase the chances of success. He emphasized planning the proposal with the consultation of the industry and society, leading to bringing acute challenges faced by our industry and society. He also talked about how to improve the proposal objectives and align it with the expertise of the investigators and by making them measurable and attainable in the proposed time. Dr. Iftikhar also mentioned the importance of writing participation of the project team members including the investigators, students, and academic and industrial collaborators to strengthen the commitment made by the team to resolve the issue, as well as highlighting the skills of the team. The use of different software while analyzing the results was also discussed during the talk.
Dr. Iftikhar also stressed the role of universities in order to support their faculty and staff for bridging the gap between the industry and researchers through various dissemination activities and to support their faculty by improving the systematic approach for conducting the research on campus and facilitating them for the purchase of equipment and utilization of funds to attain the proposed objectives in time. Prof Dr. Fateh Mohammad Mari, Vice Chancellor SAU, Tandojam gave a message that faculty must avail opportunities of getting research funding and must solve national problems the country is facing. Dr. Tariq Rahim Soomro, Rector of IOBM, and Vice-Chair of IEEE Karachi Section thanked all the speakers, organizers, and researchers from more than 20 universities of the country (total attendees 150) for taking such a keen interest in the event.
