Analysing the basic need in industries and production of several engineering equipment for the cooling processes, the present problem deals with the two-dimensional flow of electrically conducting polar nanofluid between a parallel channel. The channel is filled with porous matrix, and the flow profiles are enhanced by incorporating several physical phenomena like thermal buoyancy, radiating heat, and the external heat source. The governing nonlinear coupled problem is distorted into non-dimensional system using similarity transformation, and then, numerical treatment is adopted for their solution. As a novelty, for the optimizing heat transfer rate a new statistical approach is adopted, i.e. response surface methodology. With the help of analysis of variance, regression analysis is presented considering several factors. Further, the behaviour of the heat transfer rate is shown taking single as well as interaction terms. Finally, the observation reveals that: increasing the particle concentration plays a significant role in promoting heat dissipation from the surface region, resulting in a cooling effect and a decrease in surface temperature. However, both the Reynolds number and thermal radiation have a greater impact on enhancing the fluid temperature, regardless of the heat source effect.