Sweden-Pakistan

This is a competence and capacity building activity.

In 2015-2018 there was a mobility exchange supported by Swedish Development Research program with Swedish Research Council. That initiated exchange and built a first network. The development research support in Sweden changed and reformed to the SweDev network. In June 2023 the Swedish Government decided that the Swedish Research Council shall not longer fund grants in development research. Therefore we created own initiative starting in September 2023.

The initiative is initial. It will be given by active individuals. The main idea is to create an activity based on the need and desire at an activity point in Pakistan. Once that is understood, we can create supporting activities from Sweden.

Are you interested in being part of this? Summarize your interest and how you envision to build an activity node in Pakistan and contact us via email.

– Which is your idea about building competence and capacity? What is the aim?

– How will it be implemented? How to fund activities?

You might have interest in doing this, but not answers to the questions. It is fine, we start with what you have and find out. Important is that you will be active and coordinate from Pakistan.

Background of this project:

About ten years ago we had mobility support for Sweden-Pakistan exchange related to energy materials research in silicon carbide. It was part of Swedish Development research. That Swedish national program has shifted to a national network activity. In June the Swedish Government cancelled the development research funding.

A way ahead is by own initiative. We will focus on building competence and capacity.
For that we need an active node in Pakistan. The node will be coordinated by an individual at an R&D organization (academic, company, or any R&D based activity). It is about training and build competence with researchers and students. The activity can be in line with a research topic, but is It is not a pure research collaboration.

There are two main motivations why collaborate with Sweden. One is the high innovation level. We can facilitate more innovation. Pakistan is a fast growing innovation country. Together we can do even more!

Second motivation is that in Sweden the researchers personally own any IP created in a research project funded by Swedish or EU agencies. It means that we can easily transfer the idea and IP to Pakistan where it can grow to next level.

Open innovation is growing. Those ideas and IP which we will not use ourselves, those we can transfer to opportunities with other young persons. For that we need to build their competence and capacity. In such way we can achieve to have more research and innovation in energy and environment to come to societal use and globally.