Talking Points

1st International Conference on Natural Sciences

 I feel really pleased to be here at the inaugural ceremony of the 1 st
international conference on natural sciences organized by the Govt. Post-
graduate College for Women, Gulberg, Lahore.
 The conference provides a platform for researchers both national and
international to share and discuss the latest developments in various areas of
national and basic science.
 It also provides researchers, industry and academia from across the country
and abroad to broaden their collaboration in the areas of mutual interest to
serve humanity. It will also help all these people to acquaint themselves to the
latest teaching and research techniques.
 Here, I would focus on a few things which should be kept in mind while you
people work on your research. The basic aim of scientific research, be it basic
or applied, is to generate valid knowledge about various theoretical and
practical problems. This knowledge helps in solving the problems of society.
So our research studies should be society-oriented. Therefore, focus on the
indigenous issues of your society in your research and doctoral dissertations.
Doing this would yield implications for your society, in genuine.
 Replication of knowledge is all around in our dissertations; we are blindly
reinventing the wheel. Generic practice is this, we took an international
research study conducted by someone else in his/her context, change the name
of the country and replicate the same in our context with similar results. This
is totally a wrong practice, ethically as well as legally. The pity is that degrees
are being awarded on such junk. Your research should have novelty; it should
have your own observed issued of society; you own ideas integrated with
theory and context.
 Plagiarism is another issue which is prevalent in our research studies. There
is a wrong notion about plagiarism in our academia. We take it an extrinsic
 issue; rather it is intrinsic. We have to understand that plagiarism is not a
technical issue rather a behavioural problem. It is a huge impediment in the
way to attain academic integrity. Academic dishonesty limits critical ability,
creativity, and self-contemplation of scholars. Avoid it.
 You all need to know that the policies which are formulated at the national or
provincial level are based on the findings of various research studies
conducted by the researcher like ours. On these policies, the government
invests huge resources and efforts to be a change/improvement in the society.
So put your best; get genuine while writing your dissertation or research
projects, as the onus of management of public resources is shared.
 Last but not least, respect all the research ethics. Stick to the research ethics
at each stage of the research; whether you are writing a literature review,
collecting data, interpreting data or presenting your finding, respecting
research ethics would avoid harm to others as well as to you.
 In the end, I would really appreciate the organizers of this conference. Such
an event should often be organized at every department of all the public sector
colleges. We are way behind the world in our research quality; such activities
are helpful to bring our higher education and research at par with international
standards. Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) backs all such
conferences, seminars and colloquium which aim at contributing to the
knowledge economy of the country by addressing the indigenous issues of the
society.