About ICON

Towardsa Tech-driven Future

We connect researchers, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs to transform ideas into meaningful impact through partnerships, intellectual property support, and collaborative innovation.

Explore Our Offices

Overview

Connecting research with opportunity

900+Industry
partners

ICON brings NUST's research and innovation together and translates those strengths into practical value for industry. Our relationships span SMEs, multinational companies, major national firms, public-sector organisations, and non-profit partners.

Partners gain access to advanced research infrastructure, innovative ideas, world-class researchers, and talented students creating shared value while supporting Pakistan's technological, social, and economic progress.

The ICON Structure

Constituent Offices

Four specialist offices work together to connect industry, protect ideas, transfer technology, and develop commercial opportunities.

CAC

Corporate Advisory Council

The Corporate Advisory Council is NUST's gateway to industry. Established in 2011, it builds long-term partnerships with national firms, multinationals, SMEs and public sector organisations, and connects them with the right faculty experts, labs and research teams. Working on a triple-helix model of academia, industry and government, CAC manages NUST's industry MoUs and facilitates advisory and consultancy engagements, industry challenges and joint R&D collaboration. It also brings academia and industry closer through student industry visits, innovation talks with industry leaders and faculty placements in partner organisations, creating shared value for partners and the university.

NIPO

NUST Intellectual Property Office

The NUST Intellectual Property Office protects the ideas that emerge from NUST's research. Offering IP services since 2008 and formally established in February 2011 at the Research, Innovation and Commercialization, H-12, NIPO evaluates inventions for commercial potential. It supports researchers in drafting and filing patents, industrial designs, copyrights and trademarks, nationally with IPO Pakistan and internationally through the PCT. NIPO also builds IP awareness across campus through seminars, webinars and training.

TTO

Technology Transfer Office

Established in 2011, the Technology Transfer Office turns NUST research into products, services and ventures. It identifies technologies with market potential and structures licensing agreements with industry. It also supports the creation of spin-offs and helps arrange early-stage financing for transfer projects. The result is a clear path from the lab to the market.

BDO

Business Development Office

The Business Development Office (BDO) was established at RIC NUST in 2021 as a focal point for providing guidance and support to NUST constituent institutions and faculty members in activities related to industrial and consultancy projects with industries through tender-based business opportunities. BDO identifies and tracks strategic tender opportunities, facilitates collaboration between industry and NUST faculty, evaluates proposals, coordinates joint ventures and consortia, and supports the approval, negotiation, and execution of agreements. The office also works to strengthen industrial linkages and create commercial opportunities for NUST professors, students, spinoffs, and startups.