Collaborate, Collaborate, Collaborate: A Case Study of Lahore’s Private Universities Presents High Correlation between its Research Output and Intra-University Collaboration

Teaching and research are two essential components of every university. While some institutions are dedicated to teaching (referred to as ‘teaching university’), others favor research (‘research university’), even fewer can strike a balance between the two. This work evaluates the correlation between research output of Lahore’s private universities and their intra-university collaboration. The authors specifically chose private universities of Lahore (Pakistan’s second largest city) because their faculty have higher teaching load, attract less funding, and draw fewer excellent students. The authors employed a data-intensive approach by collecting research profiles of faculty members of all 21 private institutions and summarized them. Results show a high degree of correlation (0.846) between the university’s research output and its intra- university collaboration. At the same time, the study also presents a grim picture showing for instance, that most of the faculty in private institutions in Lahore do not present any scientific contribution.