About SSE
  The Need
  The Vision
  The Execution
  The Impact
 
About SSE
The LUMS School of Science and Engineering (SSE) is a new school within LUMS with undergraduate programs in Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics; and graduate programs in Computer Science and Mathematics. Additional engineering programs will be added in the future. To learn more about our motivation and vision, as well as the activities that have taken place in the past, please see our newsletters. The school was created by a Project Team, supported by the LUMS Faculty, Administration and Management Committee, the Virtual Program Development Team (VPDT), a remote group of academics and professionals, and guided by the Advisory Board. To learn more about LUMS SSE or its history, please send an email to sseinfo@lums.edu.pk.

Our decision to build a school for Science and Engineering followed a careful planning period of more than a year during which we identified the country's technological needs, reviewed international trends, took stock of our resources, understood our challenges, and built a strong support network of educators, researchers and corporate leaders world-wide. Most of all, we understood why we should do it.
The Need
Pakistan continues to lose talent, while our industry remains technologically dependent and our universities remain intellectually barren. Almost exclusively, our industry manufactures products licensed from foreign companies. To be globally competitive, or even to survive, we need to start producing high-value-added products and services. This requires scientists and engineers who are technically competent, innovative, entrepreneurial, have leadership qualities and broad problem solving skills. Our universities are not equipped for this responsibility. Their graduates are narrowly specialized and are unable to create knowledge at the boundary between multiple disciplines, increasingly the domain of true technological breakthroughs. Further, they have ineffective linkages with industry, an acute shortage of qualified faculty and no internal faculty pipeline to sustain academic or corporate entities. If we are to compete internationally or even survive, we need to produce a cadre of scientists and engineers who can not only develop technologies suitable for local conditions but also create entirely new economic and social opportunities for the country.
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The Vision
We envision LUMS School of Science and Engineering as the vanguard of a new class of institutions. A successful research university model for Pakistan and indeed the region; perhaps an MIT, Stanford or a Caltech for Pakistan. We hope to transform science and engineering education and research in the country. We bring to this enterprise our existing strengths: our leadership position as an educational institution; our track record of success; our ability to reinvent ourselves; our academic infrastructure for integrated multi-disciplinary programs; and most importantly, the credibility to attract the best students and faculty in Pakistan. We also see new opportunities: (i) a much larger pool of Pakistani researchers than 20 years ago when LUMS began, (ii) tremendous support from this larger pool for our initiative, and (iii) the increasing realization and support of industry leaders inside and outside the country who recognize the need for such an institution.
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The Plan and Status
The School of Science and Engineering started undergraduate classes in Fall 2008 with 150 frehmen selceted from 7500 applicants, with an option to major in one of six programs: Biology, Chemistery, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Physics. The school has two graduate programs (in Computer Sciences and Mathematics) and plans to start additional graduate programs within the next three years. These programs will provide the solid foundation upon which additional undergraduate and graduate programs, including biological engineering, chemical engineering, material science and mechanical engineering, will be built at a later stage.

SSE is housed in a 300,000 sq-ft building complex with state-of-the-art teaching and research laboratories. The school has about 40 faculty members and plans on hiring an additional 60 over the next six years. To attract the best faculty and allow them to do quality research, a start-up research grant is provided to tenure-track faculty for their first 3 years.

To provide access to a world-class education to students from all economic strata, SSE is committed to a need-blind admissions policy. Because of this SSE has been able to attract some of the brightest students in the country. In our first year undergraduate class about 60% of the students are on financial aid. Also graduate students doing externally funded research receive a stipend in addition to a tuition waiver.

Realizing the School of Science and Engineering requires significant financial resources. Our initial target was to raise $25 million which we have met (see Giving to LUMS SSE). Our new total target is $125 million of which $75 million will go into the SSE's endowment fund.
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The Impact
We strongly believe that this initiative will change the face of education in Pakistan as well as the region. Through its world-class science and engineering graduates and high quality, industrially relevant research, it will catalyze genuine industrial development in the region.
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