A study of Scopus, the world’s most comprehensive, multidisciplinary database of scholarly literature, data, and analytics reveals astonishingly positive figures about the progress made in the quality and quantum of research by Pakistan in the last 20 years.

Pakistan was ranked a lowly 48th in the world in the year 2000 in the field of agriculture. In 2023, it was ranked 15th in the world, a huge improvement. In economics, it was ranked a poor 96th in the world. In 2023, it was ranked at a remarkable 17th in the world. In physics, Pakistan has progressed from 59th position in the world ranking to 23rd position.

In biochemistry/microbiology, we have progressed from 62nd to 21st position in world rankings. In chemical engineering, we have improved from the 63rd position to the 20th position in the world. These are no mean achievements, and we can be rightly proud of them, despite the turbulence faced by the higher education sector due to slashed government funding during the last 10 years.

No country in the world has made such spectacular progress in research quality and output in a short period of 20 years. This has happened because of the quality-focused reforms introduced by us in the higher education sector during 2000-2008 when I was federal minister of science and technology and later founding chairman of the HEC. The presence of such luminaries as Dr Akram Sheikh and Dr Sohail Naqvi in the HEC and the Planning Commission facilitated the transformation.

The primary focus of the HEC programmes was to develop high-quality faculty. To achieve this, thousands of our brightest students were sent abroad to leading universities in the US and Europe for PhD and post-doctoral training. The world's largest Fulbright programme was launched to facilitate the training of our students in top US universities. Second, job placements were ensured upon their return. Third, returning students were offered research grants of up to $100,000, which they could apply for one........

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