All Answers: Re: [pakgrid] Measuring ROI on Higher Education and Research

Saturday, 13 October 2012

Re: [pakgrid] Measuring ROI on Higher Education and Research

I believe the original poster was asking about metrics. Both replies to the original post have been on a tangent. The focus of the original post was general, not specific to Pakistan or HEC.

Anyone want to share ideas about objective metrics?

On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 at 8:40 AM, Athar Osama <Athar.Osama@gmail.com> wrote:

Midhat:

Unfortunately there is no culture of objectively measuring anything in this country unless measuring something gets you the answer that you want to get. Most government agencies, including HEC, just sit on data and frustrate youir efforts to measure impact. The only data they will share is what they want you to see not what you want to see.

You may want to start with our Nature article, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7260/full/461038a.html

Best Regards,
Athar

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Midhat Ali <midhatali@gmail.com> wrote:

The State of Pakistan (and generally all other states) spend a large amount of money in HE and Research. (Lets assume for this discussion that the amount is judicious and can not be changed. Lets keep budget allocations out of scope here.)

My main Questions here would be:

How can we measure the ROI on this investment? Do we have some metrics to see if the investment is proving fruitful, or will be fruitful in the foreseeable future? For example Is there a way to measure changes in the economic indicators and relate them to the Government funding in HE&R. Is it even possible to measure?

I tried to have a look at some of the "objectives" of various funding programs, and sadly they were actually quite subjective and not measurable. Here are some examples

1. From HEC Pakistan: (http://www.hec.gov.pk/INSIDEHEC/DIVISIONS/HRD/FOREIGNFELLOWSHIPS/PDFP700SP2/Pages/Objectives.aspx)

Capacity building of universities and R&D (S&T) organization by improving the quality of education and research and promoting cooperation with universities/ research centres abroad.

To provide an opportunity to at least 700 active university teachers & researcher at public sector R&D organization holding Ph.D. degrees to work in well equipped universities/ research laboratories of the World in the priority fields of Basic and Applied Sciences, engineering, agriculture, IT, social sciences and Arts & Humanities to update their knowledge and skills and to interact with the researchers of the advanced countries; and to work in new/ emerging fields of education.

To acquire new technologies from advance countries and to explore possibilities and initiate collaborative research with the people of host institution and to develop linkage with those institution.
Okay maybe the second objective is measurable, we can easily find out when 700 teachers have had work experience. But is this our objective, or a means to some other end? How do we find out that the quality of education and research has been improved in response to this program? And how much the country has benefited after these objectives have met (Anything would do. did it improve the GDP? did it make people happier in an opinion poll?Can we expect to be able to measure the impact in the foreseeable future?)

2. From UGC India: (http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfindous/objective.aspx)

"The objective of the Post Doctoral Fellowships for the year 2012 to be awarded by University Grants Commission, India for the young Indian scholars is to provide them an opportunity to have international collaborative research opportunities, training in advanced techniques and technologies in emerging fields, thereby furthering their research capacity and ability to contribute to higher education with global perspective and forging long-term relationships with distinguished experts in these fields in USA."

Again how would they measure that the research capacity and ability to contribute to HE has been furthered or not.

3. From the EU FP7 program (http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/):
The objective of ICT research under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) is to improve the competitiveness of European industry – as well as to enable Europe to master and shape the future developments of these technologies so that the demands of its society and economy are met.

Again vague. We need metrics for competitiveness, So we can compare a before and after picture.

I would be grateful if someone can enlighten all of us about this.

Regards
Midhat Ali
PhD Student - Italy

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Athar Osama, PhD (Public Policy, RAND)
London, United Kingdom
Email: athar.osama@gmail.com
Internet: http://www.atharosama.com
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* Understanding Pakistan Project: http://www.understandingpakistan.com
* Muslim Science: http://www.muslim-science.com