It gives me pleasure to share with you that since 2008, we have been publishing the Quarterly Research & News magazine. Over the years Quarterly has performed a very useful function of sharing the Centre’s activities and views of our guest speakers, while occasionally publishing research articles, policy briefs and consultative dialogue reports.

Now, the CPPG faculty is ready to launch a policy research journal, regularize it’s monograph series, and enhance the scope of policy briefs and discussion papers published by the Centre. In that spirit the current issue is edited and managed by the student editorial team, supervised by Saba Shahid and Raheem ul Haque, both of whom have done an excellent job in advising and navigating this student-led initiative.

I want to underscore that this is a student-led initiative and reflects the vigor, dedication and a sense of purpose of the CPPG’s MPhil students. In the coming months/years the Executive Masters and the PhD students will also join enthusiastically and contribute towards making the Quarterly a flag-bearer of students’ voice and research. The faculty supervisor’s role is to advise and oversee that Quarterly becomes a torchbearer to promote a culture of research, deliberation and tolerance of opposing views in an academic environment, where student’s views and voices are respected. We hope that through this venture, the students of the CPPG will become the backbone of

the FCC research community, enabling the faculty to consolidate the Think Tank functions of the CPPG. Please join me in congratulating the Quarterly’s editorial team for making a daring new beginning. Any comments and critical feedback is welcome and will give the editorial team and contributors a sense of confidence.

Dr. Saeed Shafqat