The "Pakistan Institute of Engineering & Applied Sciences", usually known as PIEAS, is today a multi-faceted educational institution, with academic and training programmes being conducted at the highest level in a broad spectrum of disciplines. These are complemented by an active R&D programme, which now also extends to working on industry related projects. The breadth of its course offerings and project work is of course, simply a reflection of the complexity and diversity of the programmes of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC), for which it has been the major human resource development centre. The educational infra-structure that has been created for this purpose is now so extensive that the institution can aspire to pass on to the youth of the nation, the expertise that has been acquired over many decades by PIEAS in a wide range of fields such as information technology, biomedical engineering, materials engineering, chemical processing, mechanical structures, and laser technology. This has been an important motivation for its transformation into an autonomous degree-awarding institution.

The PIEAS Act was promulgated through an ordinance X of 2000 on March 22, 2000.