HEC awards 10 projects worth Rs150m for research on COVID-19.

ISLAMABAD -- In response to COVID-19 crisis, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) launched a focused Rapid Research Grant (RRG) in April 2020 to engage academia in research around the clinical management of this epidemic. The grant is aimed to encourage academic research to strengthen clinical management or public health response against this virus. Under the specialised research initiative, potential project proposals were invited to contribute to the much-needed understanding of coronaviruses -- the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and COVID-19. Considering the timecrunch, a specialised panel was constituted and tasked to complete the shortlisting in 3-4 weeks. More than 300 applications were received for this grant. After independent reviews, 58

proposals were shortlisted based on already announced eligibility criteria and other necessary requirements. Later, these proposals were jointly reviewed by experts of Medical and Biological Sciences, Engineering and Technology and finally 10 quality projects made it to the last stage after rigorous scrutiny. The budget for each of RRG award is up to a...