IIU clinches research and development grant

Islamabad : The team of International Islamic University (IIU) has brought an honor to the International Islamic University (IIU) by winning yet another international Research and Development (R&D) grant from HEC and British Council.

Dr. Imran Murtaza, Prof. Dr. Ahmed Shuja and Centre for Advanced Electronics and Photovoltaic Engineering (CAEPE) won the grant.

The project aimed to engineer the Energy harvesters and develop the self-charging power packs with the potential to revolutionize wearable technology and electric cars.

This new technology is well-aligned with the energy priority area of both Pakistan and the UK, and will enable to enhance and improve the performance of current technology such as health, environment and food quality monitoring, smart cities and buildings, transportation, sport activities, space expeditions and military devices.

Only six projects were finally awarded in Pak UK Gateway ICRG funding call, out of over 263 projects jointly submitted from Pakistan and UK, with an international peer review spanning over a year in three different stages.

The overall tune of the funds in this project is almost Rs100 million (£500,000) with half of it for the IIU team.

The project was pitched from the Centre for Advanced Electronics and Photovoltaic Engineering, and will be housed in CAEPE with its dedicated facility utilization, and an extension laboratory created in the Department of Physics in the university.

This prestigious international grant is also a recognition of Prof. Shuja’s and Dr. Imran’s earlier scientific work on super capacitors and next generation of batteries funded by Pakistan Science Foundation and National Science Foundation of China.

The new grant is also supported by the leading industries called 'Lightricity' at Oxford, UK and Nizam Energy in Pakistan.

Three world class centres of excellence, one each in University of West Scotland (Institute of Thin Films, Sensors and Imaging); University of Glasgow (Electronic and Nanoscale Engineering, James Watt School of Engineering) and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain are partnering this project with CAEPE.

The Rector and President of International Islamic University have hailed the news and congratulated the IIU team on bringing such a prestigious and grand internationally competitive research funding to the university.

They exemplified this project as a true reflection of university-industry collaboration, at an international level, to address the future economic challenges using frontier technologies.