Professor M. Khurshid Khan Email and Phone Number

Professor of Manufacturing Systems Engineering.

Professor M. Khurshid Khan received his BEng, PhD and MBA degrees from the University of Bradford in 1983, 1987 and 1997. His PhD was on experimental and theoretical study of air turbulence in Nuclear AGR Boilers. From 1987 to 1990, he worked for Pepsi-Cola International as Technical Services Manager in the Middle East, Far East and Africa Regions. In 1990, he joined University of Bradford, where he is Professor of Manufacturing Systems Engineering. He has held a number of senior posts within School of Engineering: Director (Design and Mechanical Engineering), Associate-Dean (International Programmes: ADIP), Associate-Dean (Learning and Teaching).During his tenure as the ADIP, he developed the vision/strategy to establish the School's international operations, with an initial focus on the Far East and the Near East. This was followed by the development of the further strategy to consolidate and grow in the Far East and develop the Middle East.The strategic focus was in four key areas: franchising & dual certification of degree programmes, affiliation agreements, direct recruitment and research links. The international strategy was successful in all four areas with over 8 BEng/MEng/MSc programmes franchised/dual certified in Malaysia, Singapore and Pakistan, and currently over 1000 students are registered overseas on these programmes of study. He was the first Projet Director for NAMAL University (Pakistan), a project of the Chancellor Imran Khan, taking it from an idea (Knowledge City) to its launch in 2008.His research interests are in the area of Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Knowledge-Based Systems and their applications to Manufacturing & Quality Systems, Strategy, Planning, Control, Scheduling, and Supply Chain Management. He has published over 100 journal/conference papers. He has also had research collaboration with local (NTR Weatherby, Flexitallic), national (Ford, BAE Systems) and international (Proton, Profen, Perodua) manufacturing organisations.

AWKUM was established in 2009 and is the 2nd largest University in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province, Pakistan, with over 14000 students,1600 staff (around 500 Academics), 4 campuses, 5 Faculties, and 38 Departments. There are also 16000 students at 70 affiliated Colleges and 7000 PGT students registered as private students, giving a total student population of 35000. The University is located ~20 miles east of Peshawar.I joined AWKUM as the VC in September 2017. This was after the terrible on-campus public lynching of student Mashal Khan (for alleged blasphemy) in April 2017. On my arrival, I found the University financially & administratively broke, bereft of leadership, rampant corruption in all areas of operations, staff/students in a traumatised & demoralised state, and the campus looking like a building site. I developed and led the implementation of my student-centred vision, strategy, grounded on competence, integrity, and transparency. Within three years, I transformed AWKUM from a very difficult and low position through key initiatives and involvement of external (government) and internal stakeholders (staff, students, parents, and local businesses). My achievements were strategic, governance, administrative, financial (reduced head count by over 550 people), academic and research, thereby improving the learning experience of students. However, my key achievement was to set an international leadership benchmark for competence, honesty, integrity, meritocracy, and transparency.The positive impact of the transformational changes made during 2017-2020 was that in the 2020 Times Higher Education (THE) University Global Rankings, AWKUM achieved 510th position in the World, and 1st position in Pakistan. In the subsequent THE University Global Rankings (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), AWKUM has been in 2nd position within Pakistan, and top ~750 in the world. AWKUM student numbers have increased from 10,000 in 2017 to over 14,000 in 2023 due to these results.