Peshawar - Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan has directed the higher education department to immediately prepare rules and regulations under the Higher Education Research Endowment Fund (HEREF) Act and present them in the next meeting of board of directors.
The Chief Minister expressed these views while chairing the 5th meeting of Board of Directors of HEREF at Chief Minister House Peshawar. Special Assistant to Chief Minister for Information and Higher Education Kamran Bangash, Advisor for Science and Information Technology Ziaullah Bangash, administrative secretaries of concerned departments, vice chancellors of different universities and other senior officials also attended the meeting.
The meeting confirmed minutes of the previous meeting and reviewed implementation status of decisions taken in the last BoD meeting. The Chief Minister directed that all requirements should be met in time so that the objectives of endowment fund could be achieved. The meeting formally approved a four-member investment committee headed by secretary higher education department which would ensure timely investment of seed money under HEREF.
The meeting was informed that Higher Education Research Endowment Fund Act was enacted in 2014 initially with seed money of Rs.50 million which was later increased to Rs.500 million. Profit of seed money was being utilized to finance the research proposals of universities in different fields. It was also disclosed that in the light of previous BoD meeting various research proposals of different public sector universities had been financed.
Mahmood Khan, on the occasion, said the purpose behind setting up of endowment fund was to promote quality research in government universities by financing research proposals. He directed the relevant authorities to meet all requirements including formulation of rules and regulations without any delay.