Evaluating the Research Performance of Islamabad-Based Higher Education Institutes

Abstract

Research discovers new knowledge, ideas, and technologies essential in driving the future of society and humanity. Without research, a relevant and modern country cannot exist. Similarly, the research output of universities and degree-awarding institutes (DAIs) plays a significant role in higher education and development of any country. Research fosters professional excellence in faculty, important for delivering outstanding student education and training. Therefore, this research is an evaluation of the research output of higher education DAIs in the capital of Pakistan. This research was conducted in four steps: (a) data collection: where the data were extracted from Scopus for the years 2008–2017; (b) data cleansing and labeling: which included removal of nonrequired contents and labeling of nonnumeric data to meaningful classes; (c) feature selection: useful features according to proposed research questions were selected; and (d) data analysis: data were analyzed according to research questions and results obtained from experiments with the help of statistical tools. It is concluded that with only 1% of country’s population and around 11% of Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) recognized universities geographically located at Islamabad Capital Territory, Islamabad-based universities and DAIs contributed 34% of the total publications of Pakistan produced during the study time period. This shows Islamabad-based universities and DAIs standing at the national level. The public sector universities shared the major portion of total publications of the studied universities. Private sector universities and DAIs shared 8% of the total publications.