Dr. Muhammad Irfan Khan

Professor of Environmental Science and
Dean Faculty of Sciences,
International Islamic University Islamabad

Short Bio: 

Keynote Topic: Role of Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Knowledge Economy: Life Sciences

The social theory of a “knowledge society” explains how knowledge is fundamental to the politics, economics and culture of modern society. Associated ideas include the “knowledge economy” created by economists and the “learning society” created by educators. Knowledge has become a commodity to be traded for economic prosperity. The economy in which the production of goods and services are primarily based on knowledge-intensive activities. In knowledge economy, a large portion of economic growth and employment is a result of knowledge-intensive activities. Any activity that involves the collection and analysis of data, synthesis of information, innovation and understanding the context is Knowledge-intensive activity. In the past century, the life sciences have contributed a lot to the development of Agricultural Economy. In the past three decades, the life sciences have become increasingly relevant to commerce and society, catalyzing the development of an entirely new industry- the Biotech Industry and contributed in Industrial Economy. Now the IT based Knowledge Economy is succeeding industrial economy, the Biotechnology and Biocomputing has to play there in the development of Knowledge Economy. Pakistan with unique genetic resources in human population, crops and other species provides opportunities for research and development of crop varieties resistant to various stresses. In certain areas like drug development, protein expression assays, population genetics and clinical trials, the expertise in Biocomputing can be utilized to develop business for service provision. At the moment, most researchers are not tapping their potential in knowledge-based economy due to lack of awareness, interest, or absence of IT and management support system. This trend is detrimental to academic research as well. This paper will present the argument that transforming research into policy is the basis for Knowledge Economy, where we find a gap between research findings and policy making. Therefore, integrating research findings into policy making process and to communicate research findings to policymakers is a key challenge for developing knowledge economy in Pakistan.