Pakistan Science
Foundation

Research Priority Areas

Agricultural Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Agricultural Production Engineering	• Adoption Trends and Attitudes toward Precision Agriculture. • Agricultural Robotics and Mechatronics. • Development of Sensors for Variable Rate application of Pesticides. • Machine System Design.
2	Land and Water Resources Engineering	• Evaluation of Alternative Sources of Water Supply • Integration of Hydrologic/Water Quality Models with GIS. • Integration of Remote Sensing Models with Crop and Hydrologic Models. • Optimization of Irrigation Management Strategies under Climate Change. • Waste Treatment by Crop Irrigation and Overland Flow. • Development, evaluation and implementation of strategies for managing drainage waters.
3	Food Engineering	• Automatic Quality Evaluation Systems in Food and Bioprocess Operations. • Energy Efficiency and By-Products Utilization in Food. • High Pressure, Supercritical Fluids, and Ohmic Heating Technologies Applied to Food.
4	Agricultural Operations Management	• Agricultural Safety, Innovations, and Technologies. • Analysis of Citrus Harvest Operations.
5	Agronomy	• Measuring, maintaining and improving soil health in production of corn, soybeans and wheat • Tillage and seeding systems that maximize yield and maintain soil health • Improving phosphorus, potassium and micronutrient management in light of intensive management practices and higher yields • Identifying and managing emerging insect and disease risks from changing weather patterns
6	Plant Genetics and Breeding	• Increased seedling vigor (more plants germinating) • Modiﬁed reproductive system • Increased number of seeds harvested • Altered plant architecture and growth habit • Altered photoperiod sensitivity • Enhanced ﬂavor, texture, and taste of seeds/fruits/tubers (food parts) • Reduced toxic principles (safer food)
7	Agricultural and Health Biotechnology	• Cotton: Insects, virus, drought, salts, fiber quality, weeds, hybrids • Wheat: Rusts, drought, heat, salts, aphids, weeds • Maize: Shoot borer, high temperature, weeds, hybrids, salts • Sugarcane: Top/stem borer, red rot, rust, mosaic, weeds, low sugar • Oilseeds: High Erucic acid and Glucosinolate • Pulses: Chickpea (pod borer), blight, rust • Vegetables: Fruit fly, mildews, mosaic viruses, blight, worms • Fodder crops: Diseases, pests, weeds, quality
8	Management of fruit flies	• Role of Abiotic Factors in population , Fluctuation of Fruit Flies • Chemical Control • Integration of various Control Measures
9	Soil Sciences	• Soil and water management • Improved watershed management • Cheap sources of soil quality improvement • Production of Biofertilizers • Utilization of plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) and effective microorganisms (EM) etc.
10	Horticulture	• Soil and ground water salinity • Irrigation constraints • Quality and availability of inputs (seeds/ nursery/fertilizers/pesticides). • Large price fluctuation (domestic market) and export price gap • Lack of modern packing grading and storage facilities.
11	Animal Sciences (Dairy Research)	• Breeding • Nutrition • Reproduction • Health • Dairy science

Biological Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Cancer Biology	• Production of human and animal vaccines. • Bone marrow diseases and other diseases when bone marrow fails to work • Tumor growth control
2	Plant Cell Biology	• Biological control of pests • Tapping of plant resources of Pakistan for the isolation of those drugs which are in international demand by the pharmaceutical industry • Plant tissue culture for micro-propagation of banana, peach, coconut, date-palm etc production of mini-tuber in potato and large scale forestation
3	Embryonic Stem Cell	• Inherited immune system disorders • Inherited metabolic disorders
4	Emerging Infectious Diseases and their Eradication	• Dengue fever • Polio • Bird Flu
5	Genetics	• DNA repair • transmission of genes by analyzing DNA replication • Human genomes • Production of transgenic plants containing useful monogenic traits.
6	Computational Biology and Bioinformatics	• Bio-molecules Industries • Forensic Biotechnology • Population biology and conservation genetics • Application to Cancer Research • Combinatorial Chemistry for drug discovery • Tumor initiation, progression, and drug sensitivity
7	Veterinary and Animal Biology	• Transgenic animals • Cryopreservation of ova and embryo • Reproductive Biology
8	Forestry	• Conservation of resources • Deforestation
9	Ethnobiology	Ethnobotany, Phylogenetics, Conservation
10	Paleontology	Vertebrate Paleontology, Invertebrate Paleontology, Paleobotany, Biostratigraphy
11	Mycology	Medicinal mycology, immunochemical studies, prevention of biofilms
12	Parasitology	Molecular parasitology, Veterinary Parasitology, medical parasitology

Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Agricultural Biotechnology	• Yield enhancement • Abiotic stress resistance • Biotic stress resistance • Increased input responsiveness • Environment friendly agriculture • Improved nutritional quality • Genetically modified cash crop, food crop, fruits and vegetables with increased yield and nutritional value. • Delayed ripening of fruits for increasing their shelf life for export • Production of exotic orchids and cut flowers through tissue culture • Development of bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides • Bio-reclamation of saline and sodic soils
2	Industrial, Microbial and Environmental Biotechnology	• Enzymes in industries • Production of biomolecules • Nano-biotechnology • Contribution to energy • Microbial diversity conservation • Bio-mining for extraction of precious metals from low grade ores • Bio-energy from agriculture waste • Bioremediation and waste management • Waste water treatment/purification biosensors for pollution control • Genetically modified microbes for maintenance of the environmental problems and biodiversity • Bio-desulfurization of high quality coals
3	Health and Medical Biotechnology	• Vaccines production • Improved diagnosis • Gene therapy • Medical counseling considering • Genetics and Pharmacogenomics • Bio-pharming and biofactories • Tissue and organ transplantation • Production of recombinant therapeutic proteins for treatment of human diseases • Preparation of enzymes involved in clinical diagnosis of human disease • Molecular characterization of genetic diseases prevalent in Pakistani population • Study of protein biomarkers for early diagnosis of disease • Stem cell research
4	Veterinary and Animal Biotechnology	• Animal health and feed products • Biotechnology in dairy Industry • Animal reproductive biotechnologies: Artificial Insemination (AI), Oocyte pick-up (OPU), Embryo transfer, Parthenogenesis, Cloning, Chimera formation) • Cryopreservation of ova and embryos • Transgenic animals
5	Application to Biology and Bioinformatics	• Bioinformatics related industries • Biotechnology related commodities industry • Bio-molecules industries • Application to population biology and conservation genetics • Forensic biotechnology
6	Aquaculture and marine Biotechnology	• Use of aquatic species • Bioreactors for production of industrial products

Chemical Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Oil Field Chemistry	• Waste oil recycling/ purification technology. • Efficient processing to extract oil. • Materials for solar cells. • Other aspects to make biodiesel more economically viable.
2	Industrial Chemistry	• Manufacturing of textile dyes and chemicals. • Up-gradation and beneficiation available resources (Iron and chrome ores etc). • Development of polymer alloy, blends, compounds and composites. • Development of composites materials like polymeric materials etc.
3	Nanochemistry	• Designing/development of nano-catalyst for chemical, petrochemical, food, pharmaceutical industries, and in energy‐conversion technologies interest. • Nanomaterials: synthesis and characterization of nanowires, nanorods, carbon nanotubes, graphene structures and devices. • Polymeric Matrix Nanocomposites: enhance our focus on the development of carbon fibers and CNTs reinforced nanocomposites for sports items along with other composites for wide variety of applications in Pakistan.
4	Clean Water /Water Treatment Techniques	• Cheaper drinking water commercial solutions; Bacterial decontamination using solar sensitized materials, mechanically stable membranes (long life against fouling). • Development of local technologies for treatment of industrial waste water of textile dyes etc. The problems generally include BOD, COD, TDC and pathogenic coli.
5	Herbal Related Research	• Standardization of herbal medicine. • Natural products of potential herbs.
6	Food and Nutrition	• Nutrient databases for local foods. • Foods for specific diseases or combating malnutrition. • Enzyme production.

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Economic and Fuel Geology	• Geothermal energy. • Organic and structural elements of coal-forming trees. Coalfields of Pakistan.
2	Stratigraphy and Paleontology	• Biostratigraphy (Index fossils, range zone, Assemblage zone etc). • Stratigraphy of Pakistan and Paleontology types of preservation.
3	Earth Quake Seismology	• Mathematical analysis of Seismological processes. Frequency, energy and geographical distribution of earthquakes. Composite fault plane solutions of earthquakes and their implications on the tectonics of the area.
4	Hydrology	• Hydrological and geohydrological aspects of surface water and groundwater. • Groundwater Basin modeling. Pumping tests. Artificial recharge of wells. Electrical resistivity methodologies for basin mapping.
5	Oceanography	• Exploitation of tidal energy potential and sea-based minerals such as manganese nodules and gas hydrates. • Sea-based aquaculture and fishery industry. • To locate and Estimate biological reserves including geological assets in the form of Oil & Gas, rocks and materials.

Engineering Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Civil Engineering	• Development of technologies for mitigation and minimizing earthquake and their consequences. • Using wooden materials in buildings. • Improved altitude determination with GPS and altimetry. • Close-up photogrammetry and architectural photogram metry • Flux forced movements of slender constructions • Seismic resistance construction • Sustainable Building Materials )Innovative Materials/Low Embodied Energy Materials • Environmental Engineering and Waste Management • Energy Sustainability (Energy saving/smart buildings-low or nearly zero energy consumption buildings) • Rain water management
2	Petroleum Engineering	• Experimental studies on novel methods for improved oil recovery. • Development of improved methods for numerical simulation of enhanced oil recovery processes in conventional, fractured and heterogeneous reservoirs. • Development of improved techniques for interpretation of well tests, specially related to compressible reservoirs. • Multiphase flow in wells and pipelines. • Pumping and artificial lift.
3	Mechanical Engineering	• Micro aerial vehicles and unmanned aerial vehicles • Micro-robotics; Soft robotics; Bio-inspired robotics; Robot locomotion; Control of robots with limited sensing; Computation and communication • Mobile manipulators, small to large unmanned ground vehicles • Advance Manufacturing: Includes Meso/micro/nano-machining/fabrication using conventional and advanced technologies
4	Textile Engineering	• Nanotechnology for enhanced performance of Industrial textiles, protective clothing and composites predicting the performance of fibers, yarns and fabrics. • Medical textile • 3D textile design Nano-composites, 3-D Weaving and 3-D Braiding. • Mechanical Characterization of Composite Materials, Composite Joints. • Improvement in fabric, technology of finishing, dyeing, printing, finishing and shrinkage control
5	Automotive & Marine Engineering	• Braking systems, engine technologies and bi-fuel research, hybrid electric and alternative powertrain. • Assessment of offshore wind energy potential, Impact loads of wind and waves.
6	Metallurgical Engineering	• Composite materials including ceramics and polymers, and rare earth metal. • Power metallurgy, vacuum metallurgy, foundry, casting and Pattern Design technology. • Corrosion Control and Non-destructive Testing of Vessel, Turbine, Tanks and Pipeline.
7	Polymer and Petrochemical Engineering	• Innovative Resources for Electronic Materials, Polymer Nanocomposites and Nano Materials. • Hybrid Polymers, Low-Dielectric Polymers, Reactive Polymer Blends, Catalysts for Polymer. • Synthesis oil refining technology; synthetic petro-products; and material synthesis and properties.
8	Chemical Engineering	• Assembling of nanomaterials for low-cost, flexible, large-area solar cells. • Electricity-generating carbon for nano-tubes. • Develop technology to recycle old batteries into solar cells. • Cells for more efficient bio-fuel production • Design a new rechargeable flow battery enabling cheaper, large-scale energy storage. • Making hydrogen from coal separations, creating electricity from carbon nanotubes. • Sustainable Energy System • Water recycling and re-use • Packaging and waste recycling • Complex Fluids and Polymers
9	Electronic Engineering	• Silicon-based photo-voltaics and photo-detectors. • Dilute nitrides and SESAM structures. • GaN technology, HVPE, LED-microarrays. • Quantum dot structures, Novel LED structures.
10	Telecommunication Engineering	• Radio communications technology. • Radio controlled intelligent sensors. • Neural computing in image processing, nano-structured surfaces and fluidics.
11	Electrical Engineering	• Micro and nanotechnology include LED technology, solar cells, meta-materials. • Micro and nano-robotics and sensors. • Energy efficient data centers & transfer. • Zero-energy wireless platform; tracking, control and optimization of energy use.
12	Materials Engineering	• Piezoelectric, electro and magneto-strictive, electro-chromic and rheological materials, hydrogels, shape memory alloys, sensors etc. • Biomaterials, Electronic, Optical & Magnetic Materials. • Materials Performance, Materials Processing & Manufacturing, Mechanical Properties. • Superconductors, Thin Films & Surface engineering, Welding.

Medical Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Pharmacology	• Pharmacogenetics • Drug development • Pharmaceuticals (Use of indigenous medicinal plants for the manufacture of ingredients of modern medicines). • Production of pharmaceuticals from slaughter house wastes (for example insulin, oxytocin, pituitary extracts, plasma substitute etc.). • Cancer pharmacogenomics
2	Nanotechnology	• Nanomedicine • Application to Cancer Research
3	Medical Biotechnology	• Molecular technology for diagnosis of infectious diseases. • Recombinant technologies to develop vaccines against infectious disease. • Technologies for drug and vaccine delivery system. • Sequencing pathogens genomes to identify new antimicrobials. • Bioinformatics to identify drug targets and to examine pathogen. • Recombinant technology to make therapeutic products like Insulin and Interferon. • Combinatorial Chemistry for drug discovery • Antibody production. • Production of human and animal vaccines.
4	Proteomics Technology	• Serum Proteomics for studying disease Pathogenesis and identification of disease Biomarkers. • Target identification and validation, Applications in the study of Liver disorders • Identification of efficacy and toxicity biomarkers from readily accessible biological fluids. • Investigations into mechanisms of drug action or toxicity.
5	Structural Genomics	• Human genomes • Proteomes
6	Application of stem cells in the treatment of different diseases	• Leukemia’s and lymphomas • Bone marrow diseases and other diseases when bone marrow fails to work • Inherited immune system disorders • Hemoglobinopathies • Inherited metabolic disorders
7	Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases	• Drug resistant Infections • Dengue fever • Hepatitis C • Polio • Tuberculosis • Yellow fever
8	Biochemistry/Immunology	• Enzymology • Gene expression at mRNA and protein levels in health and disease. • Immunosuppression and immune deviation

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Plasma Physics	• Plasma fabrication of advanced materials for nano-electronics. • Plasma treatment of porous polymeric membranes. • Plasmon-enhanced hybrid organic/inorganic solar cells, Organic solar cells, LEDs on fibers and woven thermoelectric devices.
2	Atomic Physics	• Laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms. • Formation of ultracold complex molecules in Bose gases and Cooper pairing in Fermi gases. • Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics.
3	Beam Physics	• Investigation of particle and photon beams and their mutual interactions • Developing novel accelerators or radiation devices • Production and acceleration of high-brightness electron beams for linear colliders and free electron lasers.
4	Biological Physics	• Development of artificial sight and techniques based on laser-tissue interactions • Micro-fluidic large scale integration and ultra high throughput DNA sequencing technology. • Development of next generation detectors of photons (radio through gamma-ray).
5	Nuclear Physics	• Low, medium and high energy nuclear physics. • Isotope development and production for research and applications. • Coherent nuclear scattering.
6	Particle Physics	• Solutions and topological structures. • Inflationary cosmology, the cosmological constant problem. • Precision electroweak measurements, low-energy super-symmetry and heavy quark physics.

Environmental Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Biodiversity	• Comparative genomics • Ecosystem protection & conservation • Climate change • Marine biodiversity • Microbial diversity and evolution • Biodiversity conservation and compliance to CBD (Convention on Biodiversity) • GIS based mapping and modeling of biodiversity
2	Environmental Health	• Respiratory health • Quantitative exposure risk modeling • Occupational health and safety • Environmental microbiology • Toxicology
3	Global Warming	• Greenhouse effects • Solar variability & seasonal change • Floods/Droughts • Climate change and its impacts
4	Air Pollution	• Airborne particulate matter • Atmospheric oxidation processes • Ozone depletion • Sound/Noise pollution • Air pollution and climate change
5	Water Pollution	• Heavy metals pollution • Pesticides & herbicides • Water reuse/Efficient system design
6	Waste Management	• Solid Waste management • Waste water treatment • Recycling
7	Energy and Environment	• Renewable energy resources • Environmental friendly energy production

Computer Sceinces

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Automation of Industry	Programmes for the automation of local industry.
2	Electronics Facilitation Centres	Electronics Facilitation Centres for providing advice, training and services.
3	ICT Policy and Action Plan	ICTs support for the implementation of the IT Policy and Action Plan.
4	Establishment of public ICT Industrial Parks	• National level sub-parks. • Technical support bases.
5	ICTs for Financial Benefits	ICT-related financial incentives.
6	ICTs Services for SMEs	Deploying ICT across SME sectors.
7	Sharing of ICTs Resources to meet Large Volume Computing	ICTs services on rental basis to ensure sustainability of the computing projects.
8	Enhancement in ICTs Framework	Making further improvements in: i. Liberalization of telecommunications market ii. Well functioning regulatory environment iii. High level National education in ICTs.
9	Supporting E-Commerce and E-Governance Applications	E-commerce through opening of economies for promoting competition and diffusion of Internet technologies.
10	Establishment of E-Business Framework	• Establishment of the citizen-centered e-state and development of the framework.
11	Establishment of Business Processing Centres	• Encouraging entrepreneurial activities such as offshore low-cost Business Processing Centres.
12	Promotion of Open Source Software	• Establishment of free open source software central authority.
13	Data Preservation/Digital Repositories	Audio preservation, digital curation, digital preservation techniques
14	Artificial Intelligence	Robotics & computational perceptions, computational Linguistics, pattern recognition
15	Knowledge Management	Knowledge sharing, dissemination, exchange, knowledge flow, Role of IT in KM
16	Information Security	Technologies for security, Information Leakage, Privacy, Data Encryption, Secure shared computation
17	IT in Health Care	e-health communication, Building social support networks, increasing health literacy skills
18	Web Computing	Semantic web technologies, including XML,RDF and web Services, Content Analysis and Information Extraction, Web- based human-computer interaction, E-Commerce, E-Business, Big data processing
19	Software Engineering	Software Process Improvement, Software Quality Prediction, Service Oriented Architectures, modeling and design, failure Analysis, debugging, remote monitoring, games

Sr. No.	Field of Research	Priority Research Areas
1	Control of Mechanical System	• Controlling mechanical system by applying additional forces. • Controlling mechanical system by directly prescribing some of the coordinates as functions of time.
2	Mathematical Models for the Control of Forest Fires	• Spreading of the fire is eventually confined to a bounded set. • Optimal confinement strategy. • Properties of optimal strategies their findings.
3	Optimal Harvesting of Natural Resources	• Optimal control problem (m = 1), optimal strategy and a function, or more generally a Radon measure. • Uniqueness of optimal strategy, continuously depending on the data. • In Nash equilibrium solution of m > 1 for the differential game and its existence of assumptions guarantee. • Additional constraints can one impose (say, create a marine reserve), in order to increase the total amount of fish harvested in a Nash equilibrium solution.
4	Non-cooperative Differential Games and Economic Models	• Construct solutions V1(x, θ), V2(x, θ) of (3), for θ > 0 small, by solving a bifurcation problem knowing the functions V1; V2 when θ = 0. • Existence of a one-parameter family of solutions of (3), continuously depending on the parameter θ and their unique solutions.

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