BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY AND ACADEMIC DEPENDENCY: THE CASE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE RESEARCH POLICIES OF HIGHER EDUCATION COMMISSION PAKISTAN

Abstract

HEC's research policies of publications, faculty appointments, tenure track, research grants, and journals have significantly improved the quantitative outputs of research practices. HEC claims that these policies lead universities toward economic prosperity by creating a knowledge economy. However, I argued that these policies do not necessarily create a knowledge economy without targeting research quality, utility, and applicability to the Pakistani context. I adopted the qualitative content analysis of HEC's research policies and interviewed nineteen social scientists from three major universities and four HEC officials. This study identified that HEC's social science research policies strengthen academic dependency and imitation of Pakistan’s social sciences to Western knowledge. The participants identified numerous structural predicaments such as lack of academic freedom, academic burden, pressure to publish, lack of critical teaching and research, intellectual corruption, and financial constraints that obstruct social sciences from becoming independent and valuable for Pakistani society. Most significantly, HEC has failed to localize social sciences to the Pakistani context but heavily emphasizes quantitative outputs. Thus, HEC needs to target the quality and relevance of social science research instead of putting social scientists in the publication race, which consequently has drained the quality of social science research and disconnected academia from public spheres.