Director Message

Science and technology have had unprecedented impact on economic growth and social development. In the modern world the powers of a nation are determined by their share of the world's knowledge, reflected by patents, papers and so on, the WTO starts to play a crucial role in the economic development. It is important for Pakistan to put all its acts together to become a continuous innovator and creator of science and technology intensive products. Knowledge has become a source of economic might and power. This has led to increased restrictions on sharing of knowledge, to new norms of intellectual property rights, and to global trade and technology control regimes. Scientific and technological developments today also have deep ethical, legal and social implications. There are deep concerns in society about these. The ongoing globalization and the intensely competitive environment have a significant impact on the production and services sectors.

Because of all this, our science and technology system has to be infused with new vitality if it is to play a decisive and beneficial role in advancing the well being of all sections of our society. It recognizes its central role in raising the quality of life of the people of the country, particularly of the disadvantaged sections of society, in creating wealth for all, in making Pakistan globally competitive, in utilizing natural resources in a sustainable manner, in protecting the environment and ensuring national security. What is needed is better diffusion, adaptation, and the use of the new technologies. This requires raising the awareness of leaders and population, strengthening global linkages, creating an environment receptive to technology, and adapting new technologies to local problems and conditions.

The people and the leaders must view the effective use of technological advances as the key to successful and sustainable development. Technological literacy has to be emphasized in the schools and encouraged throughout the population. Research laboratories must focus on the specific need of the country. In developing countries, this means emphasizing applied research and development while maintaining a core of basic researchers who can follow and participate in the world advances. As in industrial countries, scientific, technological, and social specialists must work together, materials engineering needs to interact with biology, computer science with linguistics, medicine with sociology, and engineering with economics and the law. The education system must therefore give students practice in understanding the systems, manipulating them, talking about them with one another, and envisioning the function from many viewpoints. The use of tools for managing information complexity needs to become part of schooling for an ever-increasing portion of the population. Preparing them to use technology requires a combination of skill-development, practice with complexity, and the development of adaptive problem-solving capabilities

The concept of matching local solutions to problems also applies to education and training, where important human issues must be fully addressed to promote the successful transfer of technology. Prepackaged knowledge for the use of technology is of little use in developing countries. To be absorbed, new technology must be grounded in what is already understood with technological concepts linked to local culture and knowledge.

Technology is not, however, a package that can be bought off the shelf and become immediately productive: it is a cumulative process of learning. So, for developed and developing countries alike, the ability to realize knowledge-based productivity gains depends on a country’s capacity to tap the global system of generation and transmission of knowledge, generate indigenous knowledge, diffuse and transfer information, and use of knowledge in productive activity.
Acquiring new technologies requires a system receptive to innovation, with incentives and mechanisms for translating knowledge into action. The process of diffusion implementation is greatly strengthened if there is feedback from the users of technology to generators of knowledge.

Cognizant of the task and its responsibilities toward the society the department of S&T NWFP has embarked upon a roadmap of organizing Knowledge Community leading to become a knowledge society with knowledge based-economy, fully tapping and further developing its S&T capabilities. For this is the only option available to ensure a smooth march to become developed a nation.