Establishment of Council of Editors has been emphasized to improve the quality of local research journals in Punjab during a consultative meeting of Punjab Higher Education Commission (PHEC) with the editors of local research journals.

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The meeting, held at PHEC Head office Lahore, was attended by more than 70 editors and researchers of HEC recognized journals from various disciplines including social sciences, humanities, basic and applied sciences, computational sciences, and medical sciences. Chairman PHEC Prof Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid was the chief guest of the moot. Prof Dr Syed Muhammad Awais Dean Faculty of Health Sciences (UHS) Lahore, and Prof Dr Muhammad Ramzan Director-General PHEC also attended the meeting.

Orientating participants about the agenda of the meeting, Prof Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid said that the meeting was organized to deliberate with editors and had their opinion on improving the quality research manuscripts and capacity building of authors. “Academia can play an important role in coping with the emerging challenges in health, economy and other important areas through doing productive research; Your input is very important to review/suppose changes in the existing policy to improve the quality of research,” the chairman said.

He maintained that PHEC had deliberated, with stakeholders, on the new policy of Higher Education Commission (HEC) regarding local journals’ recognition and categorization, and had shared its recommendations to the HEC. “The recommendations have also been discussed in the Commission meeting of PHEC. The commission has desired to have a permanent forum involving editors and managing directors of local journals to discuss on wider scope”, the chairman said.

Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid emphasized on quality of indigenous knowledge produced by local researchers saying that there was a need to translate research output into commercialization and meaningful products, “The impact of research on society should have been given priority” Dr Fazal emphasized. The chairman further said that PHEC would allocate funds for capacity building and training of editors of journals in the upcoming budget,

Addressing the participants, Dr Syed Muhammad Awais said that the quality and handling of research data was directly proportionate to the quality of research journals, “Journals receive a large number of articles for publishing; editors have to sort the best ones for publishing into journals. Such interactive forums are very crucial for mutual learning and suggest positive changes in policy to improve the quality of journals” he stressed. He lauded the efforts of PHEC for organizing the moot to engage editors of local journals in fruitful discussion.

The participants also shared their feedback suggesting to review the HEC policy especially for the disciplines of social sciences, languages, and humanities. The chairman PHEC assured participants to address their concerns and forward their suggestions to the HEC.