Meeting with Mr. Nadeem Akbar Director, American Institute of Pakistan Studies

A meeting of CCRD members with Mr. Nadeem Akbar, Director, American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS), was held on 21 July 2022 at COMSATS University Islamabad. Meeting was chaired by Professor Athar Hussain Head CCRD. The main agenda of this meeting was to build a consortium of different Pakistani universities under the umbrella of CCRD and AIPS. This meeting is a continuation of previous meeting of worthy Rector, CUI, and director AIPS, that was held at rector office CUI dated 23rd May 2022, where it was proposed by AIPS to develop a consortium among different universities of Pakistan. The main objective of this consortium is to engage students and faculties members from different universities for community benefits with emphasis on environment sustainability and climate change.

Previously, CCRD has been involved in various environmental sustainability and climate change related activities, with its diversified faculty CCRD covering several aspects of climate change and environmental sustainability. It has specialized in capacity to enhance understanding of climate change, environment, to develop relevant technical research capacity, establish knowledge networks and links in the region and internationally, and promotes the teaching of climate sciences. CCRD and AIPS has been working in close collaboration for engaging youth of Pakistan. The support from AIPS came in the form of lectures, seminars along with sponsorship of young faculty for trainings and mentorship programs at the United States (US).

During this meeting Nadeem Akbar and Professor Athar Hussain discussed about Fulbright scholarships, they guided to all CCRD members on how CCRD members can prepare a good application for Fulbright scholarships and importance of Fulbright scholarships. They also discussed how CCRD can work with different universities of the USA. Concept notes and proposals from the CCRD will be submitted to AIPS and AIPS will find suitable research partners from USA.

Professor Athar Hussain also explained the different projects of the CCRD and future mission. It was discussed how the CCRD and AIPS can share their resources for an effective collaboration. CCRD has developed a consortium of different Pakistani universities and presented to director AIPS, and he agreed for supporting to organize workshops, seminars, training, and support for faculty mentorship programs. At moment, CCRD involved 5 universities for this consortium details of these universities are listed in table. At the end of the meeting, Professor Athar Hussain presented a souvenir to Mr. Nadeem Akbar, and thanked all the participants.