The total population of Pakistan at the beginning of the year 2020 is approximately 216M and more than 50% of the population is residing in rural areas which are often difficult to reach due to poor road infrastructure. Besides other basic needs of life, medical facilities are also deficient in these areas. Most of the health budget is used in urban areas and rural areas are neglected. In 2017, only 676 rural health centers were working. The health conditions of women and children are even worse. Non-communicable diseases are estimated to account for 58% of all deaths in Pakistan. According to National Diabetes Survey of Pakistan (2016-17), 14% were overweight, 44% were obese and 46% were hypertensive. 44% of children under the age of 5 were reported to be stunted. Malnutrition status in rural areas reported to be worse as compared to urban areas i.e. stunt growth (46%), wasted children (16%) and underweight children (33%).The proposed project SAFE-Rural-Health provides an Education and Training System to help patient and health workers to understand the effectiveness of the new technologies in three different areas of the country: Rural, semi Urban, and Urban . SAFE-Rural-Health is strategically designed to ensure the improvement of health through efficient and appropriate use of intelligent technologies in Pakistan. The rationale is, Pakistan will gain smart health (eHealth/mHealth/Digital Health) experience in both a particular context, and in a cross pilot setting, to share the smart health best practices with developing and neighbouring countries. The expected long term impact of SAFE-Rural-Health, in target country (Pakistan) are improving health of vulnerable groups like maternity and children and old aged people that helps to have healthier and quality life in the far-flung areas of Pakistan, which are at the least priority of doctors, healthcare workers and service providers to work – due to challenges like poor infrastructure and lack of facilities.

With a high unemployment rate amongst university graduates in Pakistan and the expectation that this number is likely going to rise (IMF, World Economic Outlook, 2018) there is a need for systematically supporting entrepreneurial activities from students and recent graduates in order to create jobs for themselves and others. Although there are studies that suggest that entrepreneurial support structures at Pakistani universities are likely to increase the entrepreneurial intentions of students in the future, reports also show over 64% of the student startups do not perceive Pakistani universities to support the spirit of collaboration and entrepreneurship. Over 65% wish more support through proper coaching, over 79% wish more feedback on ideas and over 50% wish proper mentoring. And this is where TAKE-UP steps in and wants to significantly improve on the entrepreneurial cultures of the partner universities in Pakistan and transform them into role models for Pakistani universities. TAKE-UP wants to utilize expertise and capacity already present in Pakistan by including a diverse group of partners, extending their knowledge by adding value through European partners who can provide all universities with additional perspectives and expertise, and generate knowledge that can be transferred to non-partner universities in Pakistan. In particular, TAKE-UP wants to focus on the capacity building of (associated) staff members of business incubation centers and faculty members, as these play a crucial role in the motivation, development, and sustainability of business ideas at the HEIs and equip universities with necessary tools to facilitate the work of these incubation centers (i.e. FabLabs). Activities in the project are designed in a way that a holistic approach is taken to create a broad understanding of being an entrepreneurial university, so that our capacity building effort has a sustainable effect on the institutions.

Whilst trends in internationalisation continue to develop, from its beginnings as the inward recruitment of international students, moving on to outward mobility and now, to internationalisation at home, Pakistan’s involvement on the global stage has been limited to the outward mobility of students, transnational education programmes and international research collaboration limited to a small pool of internationally ranked universities. The majority of staff and students will receive little to no international experience.Adopting a comprehensive approach to internationalisation, there are clear areas where building capacity will have significant impact on higher education in Pakistan: internationalising research and accessing funding, increasing international partnerships, internationalisation of the curriculum, support for international students on campus, and providing international experiences for all to build global soft skills. In short, enhancing the quality of HE provision that Pakistan is working towards.B-International will begin with training on internationalisation and strategy development for key people within the partner HEIs, it will then work to provide an “induction” for all staff on concepts and practicalities of internationalisation and online learning on subject areas such as TNE, Bologna Processes and developing international partnerships for collaboration, which will be targeted at all staff and will build comprehensive knowledge. Students and staff will benefit from international experiences through the development of on-campus programmes for intercultural exchange and international skills development, improving graduate employability and building an internationally connected network. Equipment will be provided to support the development of the training programme and to enable international connections. This will be collated in to a toolkit for use nationally.

Biomedical Materials have advanced dramatically over the last 50 years. Historically, they were considered as materials that formed the basis of a simple device, e.g. a hip joint or a wound dressing with a predominant tissue interface. However, biomedical materials have grown to now include the development of smart and responsive materials. Accordingly, such materials provide feedback regarding their changing physiological environment and are able to respond and adapt accordingly, for a range of healthcare applications. Two major areas underpinning this rapid development are advances in biomedical materials manufacture and their characterisation. Medical products arising from novel biomedical materials and the strategies to develop them are of great importance to the UK and Ireland. It is widely recognised that we have a rapidly growing and ageing population, with demand for more effective but also cost effective healthcare interventions, as identified in recent government White Paper and Foresight reports. This links directly to evidence of the world biomaterials market, estimated to be USD 70 billion (2016) and expected to grow to USD 149 billion by 2021 at a CAGR of 16%. To meet this demand an increase of 63% in biomedical materials engineering careers over the next decade is predicted. There is therefore a national need for a CDT to train an interdisciplinary cohort of students and provide them with a comprehensive set of skills so that they can compete in this rapidly growing field. In addition to the training of a highly skilled workforce, clinically and industrially led research will be performed that focuses on developing and translating smart and responsive biomaterials with a particular focus on higher throughput, greater reproducibility of manufacture and characterisation. We therefore propose a CDT in Advanced Biomedical Materials to address the need across The Universities of Manchester, Sheffield and The Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM), Republic of Ireland (ROI). Our combined strength and track record in biomaterials innovation, translation and industrial engagement aligns the UK and ROI need with resource, skills, industrial collaboration and cohort training. This is underpinned strategically by the Biomedical Materials axis of the UK's £235 million investment of the Henry Royce Institute, led by Manchester and partner Sheffield. To identify key thematic areas of need the applicants led national Royce scoping workshops with 200 stakeholders through 2016 and 2017. Representation was from clinicians, industry and academia and a national landscape strategy was defined. From this we have defined priority research areas in bioelectronics, fibre technology, additive manufacturing and improved pre- clinical characterisation. In addition the need for improved manufacturing scale up and reproducibility was highlighted. Therefore, this CDT will have a focus on these specific areas, and training will provide a strongly linked multidisciplinary cohort of biomedical materials engineers to address these needs. All projects will have clinical, regulatory and industry engagement which will allow easy translation through our well established clinical trials units and positions the research well to interface with opportunities arising from 'Devolution Manchester', as Greater Manchester now controls long-term health and social care spending, ready for the full devolution of a budget of around £6 billion in 2016/17 which will continue through the CDT lifespan.