The Government of Pakistan and United States of America recalling the close ties in scientific and technological cooperation signed an agreement to create a UAF-US Collaboration for Strengthening Agriculture Academia and R&D Faculty Development, Technology Transfer and Product Commercialization (FDTTPC) Program to reap the mutual benefits of agricultural research through joint research projects and exchange of scientists. Under this agreement, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad (UAF) has established an Endowment Fund titled as FDTTPC. The income generated through investment of the principal funds shall be used for FDTTPC activities/projects in line with the Pakistan’s long term research/development goals of the agriculture sector. The goals focus on food security, poverty alleviation and promoting broad based equitable and sustainable agriculture.

Innovation and technology development has always been the main stay of agriculture because agricultural progress and enhancement depends upon the influx of modern technology tools from agricultural scientists and experts. Technology development/advancement is a continuous process operative all over the world providing a driving force to boost up development progression. Current developments in agriculture at global level are the outcome of the same.  Endowment Fund Secretariat (FDTTPC) has been set up to provide financial support to strengthen agricultural research and academia through Faculty Development, Technology Transfer and Product Commercialization. Supporting faculty members to acquire higher qualification (MS, Ph.D., Post Doc. etc.) and specialized training in the technologically developed countries will help to get most out of them in terms of research and academics. Innovations/technologies developed at the research institutes remain unproductive if not transferred and adopted by the end users. Funding technology transfer projects ensures better and efficient transfer of improved technology from the research institutes to the stakeholders. It will also accelerate the adoption process of the innovations/technologies. The ultimate result will be the economy boost in the country. Commercialization of innovations/products/technologies through patents and registration is another help being provided by the Secretariat to the Agricultural Scientists. This will certainly raise the spirit of research for the development and advancement of agriculture in Pakistan.

             Statutory bodies of FDTTPC

·        Board of Directors

·        Technical Advisory Committee

·        Investment committee

Activities

Endowment Fund will provide financial assistance in three areas, i.e. Faculty Development (FD), Technology Transfer (TT) and Product Commercialization (PC). For Faculty Development, scholarships will be awarded to competent and talented scholars to pursue specialized short term trainings in agricultural sciences in technologically developed countries. Under Technology Transfer component, funds will be provided to meet all the operational and development expenditure through competitive grants with the focus on Technology Transfer. For Product Commercialization, help and assistance will be provided to protect the Intellectual Property Rights of the researchers/scientists through patents and copy rights before commercialization of products. It will also provide funding on matching grants basis to commercialize the already patented technologies in collaboration with the private industry and entrepreneurs.

The Endowment Fund Secretariat invited concept papers/projects proposals under Technology Transfer component during March 2007 through the national press. The areas specified were Water use efficiency, Post harvest technologies, Animal Health Care and Production Strategies, Modern production technologies for different field crops and Management of brackish and heavy metal contaminated soils/waters. In total 51 proposals were received and after preliminary evaluation the proposals were sent back to P.Is. for submission of full projects. Afterwards 37 full blown project proposals were received which were sent to experts all over the country for technical evaluation. Each project proposal was reviewed by two experts. So far 66 experts have sent back their comments and suggestions and the projects are being revised by the Principal Investigators.

The Endowment Fund Secretariat also invited applications from scientists for short term training during March, 2007 under Faculty Development component in the subjects of Seed Technology, Agricultural Biotechnology/Genetic Engineering, Embryo Transfer Technology/Embryo Cloning/Embryo Sexing, Plant Virology, Training of Laboratory Instrumentation, Transgenic Animal Production, Environmental Impact and Agri. Business Strategies and these applications are under process for the grants of funds etc. In this activity, response was not good. Hence, the same training program was re-advertised during July, 2007 in the national press. The opportunities of training courses available at different Institutes of the world are also being identified to be provided to the applicants.

Instruction Manual

Staff of Secretariat