RAWALPINDI:U.S. – Pakistan, University Partnerships Grants Program (UPGP) follows the success of the University Partnership initiative, through which American universities in 20 partnerships with Pakistani universities received U.S. government grants to establish three-year bilateral relationships.
The program enables the departments of the universities which participated in the original partnerships described above to apply for grants of up to USD $50,000 for follow-on projects to share their knowledge with universities which were not part of the original partnership program.
FJWU as alumni of the initial partnership has won the grant under 2021 round and most recently for the 2022 round.
The University Partnerships Grants Program 2020-23 (UPGP) was funded by the US Government and administered by the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP).
The current project titled “Strengthening Teaching & Research Capacity in Pakistani Universities through Collaborative Partnership in Social Sciences” aimed to extend teaching and research capacity building of University faculty to different provinces including Federal Capital, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
The universities are selected on the basis that they have a large number of students and have a greater number of faculty members along with various affiliated colleges and institutes.
Along with this, the current project extends to include newly developed universities with a high need of exposure to faculty development programs and have greater number of female faculty and students.
In line with the dominant identified needs and priorities, developing and implementing an efficient and sustainable mechanism of teaching and research capacity building of major universities was on the agenda list.
For the current project “Strengthening Teaching & Research Capacity in Pakistani Universities through Collaborative Partnership in Social Sciences” (round 2022), Dr Saima Hamid, Vice Chancellor FJWU is project advisor and trainer.
The project grant was awarded to Dr Aneela Maqsood, Head of Dept. of Behavioral Sciences as Principal Investigator.
Dr. Adeela Rehman, Head of Dept. of Sociology, awardee of 2021 award is Co-PI in the project.
Dr. Shazia Hashmat, Communication and Media Studies and Ms. Zainab Moin, Dept of Islamic Studies are project team members and trainers.
The project includes US trainers who were part of UPGP exchange programs. The partner universities include seven universities of two provinces of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federal Capital.
University of Sargodha, Punjab Province, Govt. College Women University of Faisalabad, Punjab Province, Pir Mehr Ali Shah Arid Agriculture University (PMAS- AAUR), Rawalpindi, Punjab Province, Kohsar University Murree, Punjab Province, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad, Federal Capital, Women University Swabi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Hazara University Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province were included in the partnership program.
FJWU highly acknowledges the role of US Government and officials of the United States Educational Foundation in Pakistan (USEFP) for the grant award and their role in strengthening Pakistan Universities.