THE best Philippine universities have been floundering in international rankings. We used to be the pioneers in education, especially higher education, in Asia, yet today not one of our universities made it to the top 300 ranked by international education company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
Our best performer is the University of the Philippines at 332nd, followed by Ateneo de Manila University at 360th. Meanwhile, Asian universities are rising in the global rankings—47 of the top 300 were out of Asia, and 21 of them climbed up the list. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Nanyang Technological University are barely 20 years old but have already reached the 40th and 60th place, respectively.
QS reported that the ascent of young Asian universities is driven by their strong appetite and capacity to innovate, especially in the areas of science, engineering and technology. They are generating millions in funding on the back of their own R&D to further support growth and build cutting-edge facilities. This has been sorely lacking in our higher education system.
That is why the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste), of which I am chairman, is promoting a new, radical model for higher education—one that is heavily centered on R&D and innovation. After all, one does not deserve to be called a university if research and knowledge generation are not its predominant activity.
This new model is called the innovation clusters, tripartite partnerships on R&D among academe, private sector and the government. Science Secretary Mario Montejo has warmed up to the idea. He has pledged to support it to also revitalize the agency and make it more responsive to the pressing needs of nation-building, decent job generation for one.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED), led by Dr. Patricia Licuanan, has also come onboard and at the budget hearings last week, all of our 112 state universities and colleges (SUCs) embraced the idea. They were won over by the presentation of Comste Executive Director Greg Tangonan—who has 32 years of R&D experience at Hughes Research Laboratories and 49 US patents to his name.
This is a good sign that the stakeholders themselves are interested in change, clamoring for it even. While we do have several outstanding universities, they stand out as islands of excellence in an ocean of mediocrity. We have to change that if we are to truly harness the potential of our people.
The innovation clusters are advancing a nonlinear model of innovation that will make sure that R&D will go from the labs to commercialization in as short as two years.
We will organize regional universities and technical schools into research consortiums to which the DOST will download R&D money. CHED will ensure that SUCs and private universities will be capable of absorbing such multi-year, multidisciplinary research funding. And together, the DOST and CHED will promote synergy through funded research, focused training modules, industry-taught courses and on-the-job training.
This model may sound revolutionary only because we have never done it here. But it has been the tried-and-tested formula to shepherd innovation toward useful application and wide use internationally.
The DOST and Comste have agreed on four initial pilot innovation clusters that are ripe for launch. The Philippine Institute of Algae Research & Commercialization will focus on algae biology, cultivation and processing for aquaculture, animal feed, nutraceuticals and biofuels.
Cebu rivals Manila in ICT dominance. It is a prime area to incubate the ICT cluster on cloud computing that will serve global ICT companies developing software as a service sold or leased to government, business establishments and consumers.
Mindanao is a great test bed for the cluster on nonadversarial mining technology development. It will transform Mindanao into a center of excellence in mining that promotes safe and environment-friendly technologies, build new laboratories in regional universities and tap local talent for biodiversity surveying. Most important, it will attract millions in foreign direct investment that could go somewhere else in the region.
The disaster science and management cluster is, perhaps, the most critical at this time when natural disasters batter us repeatedly. It will provide accurate science for forecasting and modeling, as well as training for local governments and private institutions on disaster mitigation. The key here is that it will aim for disaster-risk reduction and integrated-risk governance, not just emergency response that does nothing to minimize our vulnerabilities.
Next in line are clusters on high value-added electronics products, remote sensing for precision agriculture, rice self-sufficiency, high value-added crops and biotechnology for health.
If the enthusiasm of stakeholders is any indication, we will be able to get the first few clusters off the ground soon and produce tangible results over the next three years.
We hope the national government will realize its value and take it up as a banner project. Efforts at reducing poverty and improving governance will not result in progress unless we leapfrog development itself.
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