ISLAMABAD- The British Council (BC)’s new Chief Executive Officer CiaránDevane visited Pakistan Higher Education Commission (HEC), on Tuesday to participate in the orientation event “The UK and Pakistan: Increasing Investment in Research for Higher Education.” The purpose of the programme is to provide opportunity to the beneficiaries of the HEC-British Council collaborative education and research initiatives. British Council has been working with HEC Pakistan since 2004 with the launch of joint Higher Education Links programme and later on with Phase II of the same programme in 2006. The programme has been funded by the HEC and managed by the British Council in Pakistan. To date, the British Council has built 50 research and capacity-building links between higher education institutions of Pakistan and UK. Speaking at the occasion, Devanethanked HEC for inviting him and providing him the opportunity to meet academic and research community of Pakistan. He appreciated HEC efforts and the work presented by senior researchers belonging to academics, industry, students, media, and civil society. It is pertinent to mention here that 98% of all university vice-chancellors in Pakistan have attended leadership training programmes in the UK, 76% of all current vice-chancellors contributed to policy dialogues and global education dialogues that have been held across the South Asia region, 78550 researchers and 97767 students were involved in partnerships, in addition to 688 exchange visits from UK to Pakistan and vice-versa took place. Prominent among those who attended the meeting include HEC Chairman, Prof DrMukhtar Ahmed, British Council Pakistan Country Director Peter Upton, and Acting Executive Director DrMansoor Akbar Kundi, along with senior and junior researchers from Pakistan’s higher education sector.
