LUMS SSE is the first research-based private university in Pakistan. Research will play a defining role in its culture. The focus is to bring in research-active faculty from all over the world who can contribute to the advancement of knowledge through our PhD programs. This faculty will be pivotal in producing PhDs who are globally competitive in terms of their impact, and whose work spins off into knowledge-based companies in Pakistan and brings the hi-tech era to our economy. Research is so important that it will even permeate our undergraduate education and make it an inquiry based education, instead of one where facts are memorized out of text books.

Furthermore LUMS SSE is different from other science and engineering universities because it will concentrate initially only on a few key science and engineering disciplines at whose intersection most new discoveries and powerful new products will emerge. We have decided to start with Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics. Additional strategic disciplines may be added later. Therefore we are building this university from the ground up to teach the fundamentals of these key disciplines to all our undergraduates, and to promote inter-disciplinary research amongst our graduate students. There will be no boundaries within the institution; there will simply be clusters of people united by common interests. Today somebody who belongs to the physics cluster may decide tomorrow to move to an electrical engineering cluster. This will make it not only a unique university in Pakistan but probably in the world.
top...

The prevailing education system of Pakistan does not prepare students for real research. It does not demand discovery from them. Even our graduate students in the current Pakistani climate have never really experienced quality research; they don’t know what it is to make significant discoveries because their education does not prepare them.

First, we have to overcome this obstacle and create an intellectual environment that is conducive for research. In this regard our biggest “facility” will be our methodology of teaching, where the emphasis will be on inquiry based learning rather than rote learning. Once our students are mentally prepared to do research, we offer them the use of the best science and engineering, research and teaching building that has so far been constructed in Pakistan. It has 300,000 sq ft of space, configured by the world’s leading designers of scientific institutions. We will carry forth our mission with lab facilities which are unmatched in their quality, in their design for inter-disciplinary research, and in their reconfigurabilty. We will give our incoming faculty generous funds to acquire the latest scientific instrumentation. For those of our faculty who are more theoretically inclined we will offer superb, hand-picked library resources and online access with broadband connections to almost all the world’s online journals.
top...

At LUMS SSE, we have already formed a critical mass of some of the best Pakistani scientists, at various levels of their careers, whom we identified at some of the world’s great institutes. Even at this early stage in SSE’s development our faculty covers all the six key disciplines which I have described earlier. They are defining the curriculum and building up our research programs. However we are still small in numbers.

Here we are faced with the problem that Pakistan has produced very few world class, hard-core scholars who are research active in modern science and engineering and who aspire to faculty positions. That total pool is tiny. We have spent the last two years searching the world over through our networks, on the Internet and through a variety of other means, to locate these people, approach them and devise a means to bring them back here. To these people we will offer, also for the first time in Pakistan, the very privileged position of a faculty appointment on the tenure track. What that means is, to faculty members who, after working here for a few years or elsewhere, prove that they are exceptional teachers and world-class researchers who publish in the leading journals, we will offer lifetime contracts. Faculty on the tenure track will be assisted by other excellent individuals whose main contribution to LUMS SSE will be through teaching. In time we hope to increase this pool of high caliber individuals from our own students.
top...

That is another challenge, but it can be overcome. I think we take some comfort from what has gone on in India, because there too secondary schools suffered from similar problems. Yet the best Indian institutions were able to identify the raw talent in the far reaches of their country, bring them onboard and open their minds to the point that they become world-class researchers. India was able to do it, so in principle we can do it too.

The first challenge is to locate those students who excel not just in rote learning but who have a true passion for science. We will hunt far and wide in every section of society, from every socio-economic background, for the student who has the gleam in their eye for science and mathematics, who has the promise in spite of a poor education, whose mind has not yet been dulled. Our admissions test and process is designed to locate and identify those students. The second component is to take in these people into our four-year undergraduate program and bring them up to speed so that by the fourth year they are doing independent research which we will require of every undergraduate. Sometimes this research may be so good that it can be published in international journals. Towards the end of fulfilling these two goals our students should feel empowered that they know enough of the fundamentals in the core disciplines that they can go ahead and make contributions at the frontiers. It is this quality of undergraduate who will be sought by the world’s leading research institutes and will eventually transform Pakistan.
top...

That is another challenge, but it can be overcome. I think we take some comfort from what has gone on in India, because there too secondary schools suffered from similar problems. Yet the best Indian institutions were able to identify the raw talent in the far reaches of their country, bring them onboard and open their minds to the point that they become world-class researchers. India was able to do it, so in principle we can do it too.

Once we have located the best minds for LUMS SSE and if we determine that they cannot afford our education, the trustees of LUMS and the management committee have given us the go ahead to pay for their education in varying degrees. In the extreme case we will pay for everything and even give the student money to live on the campus. However they must first pass our very high bar for admissions.

It is important to tell your readers that a science-based curriculum in the modern sense is very expensive, far more expensive than the curricula offered in the existing schools of LUMS. That is because from their very first year, our undergraduates will be using state-of-the art labs, and they will continue to have a quality lab experience through all their years. To keep these labs operational and updated requires a very large and continuous flow of funds. Therefore we will ask those who can afford to pay, to pay a fee that reflects the real cost. Those who cannot pay, we will find ways to bring them here; that is our responsibility.
top...

So far through private contributions, LUMS SSE on its own has raised USD 40 million, all from within Pakistan. Recently Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) decided that it cannot ignore good private universities that deliver a superior education. They selected LUMS as one of those private universities which they are willing to sponsor. We have in front of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) a proposal to match the funds we have so far raised. If that proposal is successful, we will have a total of USD 80 million to work with.

Now this is just the beginning. We will need to raise funds continuously and we will have to set high targets. I believe there is a lot of private wealth that can still be tapped, which at present is diffused across many institutions. To private donors I say that they should consider focusing their donations on one or two well-managed, superbly staffed institutions like ours. It is true that we will only produce a few hundred undergraduates every year, but we will produce people of such high caliber that their impact on Pakistan will be the equivalent of many more people from lesser institutions. The government, too, has been spreading its resources over many institutions, and to them we make the same case.

Our long-term plan is to go forth in the region and tell wealthy Islamic countries that here is an outstanding university that will develop the region and enrich it intellectually. Fund it; it is a plausible option for your students where they will receive a superb education while living in an Islamic cultural setting

Another very important component is our alumni. Our students will get such a first-class educational and cultural experience that when they graduate, their first choice when they decide to give will be to give back to LUMS SSE. Thus we want to create life long supporters of this institution whose numbers grow with time.
top...