Ahmad’s intellectual authority, evaluative precision, and reformist vision have earned him distinction at multiple government-level academic and professional platforms
LAHORE: (UrduPoint/Pakistan Point News-August 11th, 2025) Across Pakistan’s premier public-sector universities and research institutions, a new paradigm of academic excellence and public leadership has emerged — and at its core stands Mr. Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad. His intellectual authority, evaluative precision, and reformist vision have earned him distinction at multiple government-level academic and professional platforms, including the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), and the Punjab board of Technical Education (PBTE). Alongside these institutions, his international engagements as peer reviewer for leading journals such as the Review of Education, Administration & Law (REAL), the International Journal of Social Sciences Bulletin (IJSSB), and the Pakistan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (PJHSS) have positioned him as a truly national and global scholar-evaluator — one whose work shapes the very standards by which research and governance are now judged.
The University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF), one of Pakistan’s most prestigious and historic public universities, recognized Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad’s exceptional depth of scholarship and entrusted him with a formal academic authority rarely conferred on practitioner-scholars. He serves as a member of the Ph.D. Dissertation Committee, exercising formal evaluative powers in management sciences, economics, finance, and governance. Departmental records confirm his active participation in viva voce examinations, dissertation review panels, and final deliberations that decide whether a doctoral candidate’s research meets the highest academic standards. Between 2022 and 2025, he participated in over thirty-three doctoral examinations with an aggregate pass rate of 91 percent, signing examiner reports and contributing detailed written evaluations that directly shaped the University’s final judgments. His appointment — renewed annually by the Graduate Studies Board — stands as institutional recognition of his scholarly expertise, impartial judgment, and enduring contribution to maintaining Pakistan’s academic rigor and intellectual integrity.
His work at UAF exemplifies the Punjab Government’s forward-looking strategy of engaging practitioner-scholars who bring real-world policy insight into academic research. Naveed’s evaluative lens ensures that Ph.D. research remains both methodologically sound and practically relevant, anchoring each dissertation in data-driven inquiry and public-value outcomes. His presence on these doctoral panels embodies the State’s confidence in his intellectual objectivity and professional discipline.
Equally, Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) — Pakistan’s first women’s university and a national leader in governance, social sciences, and gender-policy research — has acknowledged Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad’s field-defining innovations. The university’s doctoral program in governance formally selected the Punjab Sahulat Bazaars Authority (PSBA), which Naveed leads as Director General, as a doctoral-level case study for its originality, fiscal sustainability, and replicable welfare design. FJWU’s academic committee documented PSBA’s impact across financial datasets, audit-verified models, and field performance, concluding that it represents “a first-of-its-kind, subsidy-free welfare authority rooted in fiscal discipline and innovation.” The university further credited Naveed’s transformative leadership for turning a dormant Section 42 company into a provincial welfare institution that delivers affordability, transparency, and inclusive economic opportunity — a change that has now entered national academic discourse.
Simultaneously, the Punjab Board of Technical Education (PBTE) continues to rely on Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad’s evaluative authority for maintaining the integrity of its technical and professional examinations. Since 2021, he has adjudicated over 475 professional-level assessments under PBTE’s commerce and technical programs. His work involves detailed reading of written theses, adjudication of research-level submissions, and final certification decisions determining eligibility for professional advancement. PBTE’s record attests that his evaluations have been determinative, binding, and non-appealable, reflecting exceptional trust in his analytical rigor and academic fairness. His judgments bridge education with employability, ensuring that only candidates who demonstrate originality, conceptual clarity, and ethical merit progress to professional certification — an exemplary instance of judging the work of others in its purest sense.
Beyond national borders, Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad’s peer-review credentials amplify Pakistan’s academic reputation internationally. As peer reviewer and academic panelist for REAL, IJSSB, and PJHSS — journals indexed in Crossref, EconLit, EBSCO, and Ulrichsweb — he has been invited repeatedly to evaluate manuscripts on governance reform, fiscal management, and institutional accountability. Editors have praised his reviews as “analytically rigorous, methodologically precise, and constructively influential,” with his recommendations directly shaping publication outcomes.
At PJHSS, recognized by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) as a Y-Category journal, Naveed has completed numerous detailed peer reviews across governance, economics, and management. His recommendations led to 17 manuscripts accepted after minor revisions, eight after major revisions, and eleven rejected on scholarly or ethical grounds — clear evidence of his uncompromising academic integrity. His sustained involvement with REAL and IJSSB has similarly elevated peer-review quality standards within Pakistan’s social-science publishing ecosystem.
Meanwhile, his own scholarly authorship places him among Pakistan’s most prolific practitioner-academics. Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad has authored eighteen research papers in HEC Y-Category journals, covering welfare economics, digital governance, fintech, leadership, and social responsibility. Articles such as “Economic Innovation in Public Markets” (PJHSS, 2025), “Sustainable business Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage” (QRJSS, 2025), and “Exploring the Role of Digital Technologies in Enhancing Supply Chain Efficiency” (Indus Journal of Social Sciences, 2025) demonstrate his rare ability to translate academic theory into practical reform.
Further amplifying his impact, over twenty independent, peer-reviewed studies authored by scholars nationwide have analyzed PSBA’s institutional architecture and fiscal innovation under his leadership. Works such as “A Distinctive Governance Model: How Punjab Model Bazaars Were Reorganized into a Statutory Public Welfare Authority” (REAL, 2024), “Institutional Innovation: How Naveed Rafaqat Transformed Punjab Sahulat Bazaars into Pakistan’s Only Statutory Authority” (CJSSR, 2024), and “Redefining Affordability: Evidence from Punjab Model Bazaars under Naveed Rafaqat’s Leadership” (CJSSR, 2025) collectively position PSBA as Pakistan’s most researched governance innovation and Naveed as a nationally recognized reform architect.
HEC Y-Category Journals — Meaning and Impact: In Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission classification system, a Y-Category journal is an officially recognized, double-blind, peer-reviewed publication meeting HEC’s global standards for editorial ethics, originality, and citation indexing.
Research published in these journals counts toward faculty promotions, doctoral evaluation, and national research-productivity rankings, giving authors formal recognition in academic audits.
Publication in this tier certifies that the work has undergone rigorous methodological and ethical vetting and stands as part of Pakistan’s verified scholarly record — a hallmark of both national credibility and international recognition.
Through these overlapping roles — doctoral examiner, professional evaluator, peer reviewer, and published author — Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad fulfills every criterion of international scholarly excellence.
He has judged the work of others across universities, technical boards, and international journals; authored original research of major significance; and led a distinguished organization whose reforms are now integral to doctoral study and policy formulation.
As both academic evaluator and Director General of Pakistan’s most progressive welfare authority, Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad continues to bridge research and reform.
His doctoral judgments shape future scholars, his peer reviews influence international publications, and his leadership of PSBA defines the nation’s trajectory of innovation in public governance.
In the truest sense, Naveed Rafaqat Ahmad does not merely judge the work of others — he sets the standard by which future scholars, institutions, and policymakers will be judged.
