Maroof A. Syed, President and CEO CERP, has been successfully appointed as a member of the National Committee on Research and Development (R&D) by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan. The national committee is led by a team of successful and distinguished academic leaders, social scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators directing the commission on the effectiveness of R&D programmes, policies and overall framework.
Mr. Syed is part of innovation, commercialisation, and impact of University R&D group. This group will administer evaluation of the Office of Research, Innovation & Commercialisation (ORICS), Business Incubation Centers (BIC’s), and Technology Development Fund (TDF). He is also a co-chair of the Social Sciences and Humanities research group. This group will be responsible for evaluating Social Sciences research, social integration outreach, thematic research grants, research journals, and textbooks and monographs, etc under HEC R&D Department.
The committee will be responsible to review all programmes and their modalities under the division. The committee will be assessing different assignments under R&D Department which includes innovation, commercialisation and impact of university R&D, university and industry collaborations, culture of research: pedagogy and curriculum, social science and humanities research, research performance, promotions, incentives, and overarching R&D framework.
Mr. Syed has also been responsible for leading global investment strategy in pre-IPO technology companies as a co-founder and Managing Partner at Karnybo Group. He also serves as a Director of Pakistan Strategy and Development at Harvard’s Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) and is the 2017 recipient of the Lucius N. Littauer Award from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Academically Mr. Syed has a B.S. in Computer Systems Engineering from Rensselaer (RPI) and a Master in Public Administration (MC/MPA) from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.