Through the Higher Education Commission’s Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs (IPFP) Programme, 1,041 Pakistani PhDs have been successfully placed as assistant professors at public sector and private sector universities across the country.
These scholars belong to diversified fields like water resource management, biotechnology, food engineering, animal nutrition, bio-chemistry, plasma physics, supply chain management, water resource engineering, cell biology, civil and environmental engineering, fish molecular biology, pharmaceutical chemistry, high energy physics, biomedical textiles, leadership, culture & social preferences, geophysics, mathematics, computer sciences, business education, social sciences, humanities, environmental sciences, biomedical textiles and other disciplines.
These scholars have been initially employed for one year on a salary package of Rs 104,000 per month. They may be hired on permanent basis on completion of their tenure through the normal selection process of the host institution.
The HEC also offers these scholars a startup research grant of Rs 0.5 million upon joining the host institutions. So far, the IPFP programme has processed around 1,416 applications while 233 applicants are at different stages of placement.
The commission is not only striving to provide opportunities to the aspiring scholars to pursue higher degrees, both at domestic and international levels, it has also devised the IPFP programme for facilitating the placement of these scholars at academic and research institutions. This comes as a result of the visionary approach of the HEC to ensure proper utilisation of the manpower being trained through huge investments in the scholarship programmes.
The HEC’s Interim Placement of Fresh PhDs Programme is underlying two-pronged approach; primarily it provides the lucrative avenues of employment to the fresh PhD professionals and secondly it meets the faculty requirement of public and private sector universities for ensuring quality teaching and research, which is one of the core strategic aims of the HEC.
The IPFP provides to all Pakistani fresh PhD graduates an opportunity to be placed as assistant professors on a tenure-track system-based assistant professor position for maximum period of one year.
The qualified applicants are placed only in those universities which are ready to offer these professionals a fair chance of absorption on permanent posts through normal selection process within the one-year contract period.
Moreover, each IPFP beneficiary is also provided with Rs 0.5 million startup research grant to initiate a feasible research project at his host university immediately upon joining. This ongoing regular programme is open to all fields. The placed scholars have found this programme quite useful and effective and termed the programme quite helpful in countering brain drain at the national level.
