IN my last two columns, I wrote about how we will revitalize the country’s higher education, science and technology policy, and research and innovation capacity through the framework of innovation clustering.

The idea proposed by the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste), of which I am chairman, is to bring together academe, industry and government in clusters that will adapt and develop usable technologies to address our pressing challenges on food security, climate change, energy use and sustainable exploitation of resources, as well as raise our living standards and create high-tech jobs.

To bring this to fruition, the government must show the strongest signal possible—that it is willing to bankroll this R&D-intensive endeavor.

Fortunately, we have committed partners—Secretary Mario Montejo of the Department of Science and Technology and Chairman Patricia Licuanan of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)—who are willing to download a portion of their funds to the innovation clusters.

It is also notable that our state universities and colleges (SUCs) are enthusiastic about this project. As the primary recipient of grants and funding, they can finally revitalize their mostly dormant R&D personnel and capabilities, and bring this to bear in solving national issues.

Under the 2012 national budget, we are proposing that P50 million be earmarked from the CHED budget for SUCs that will undertake research projects—including the purchase of equipment or upgrade of existing laboratories—on five priority areas: algae research and commercialization; disaster science and management; ICT for cloud computing and software-as-a-service; responsible mining technologies; and precision farming and smart agriculture.

Because food security is a critical issue today in the light of the upward spiral of food prices that exacerbate hunger and malnutrition, we recommend that the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development allocate P50 million and P30 million, respectively, to the agriculture cluster. The only way we will achieve food security is by investing substantially in R&D that will increase yields, make crops more resilient and improve the economic returns of our farmers, fishermen and agribusiness entrepreneurs.

Another P10 million from the budget of the Philippine Council for Aquatic and Marine Research and Development would be set aside to implement R&D projects on algae research and commercialization, especially on the use of algae as a renewable fuel source.

From the budget of the Philippine Council for Industry and Energy Research and Development, we will devote P120 million to fund projects under the clusters on disaster science, responsible mining and ICT.

We will also mark P50 million from the e-government fund to support the technological components of the disaster science, ICT and smart agriculture clusters.

A special cluster of SUCs in the Cordillera Autonomous Region will be eligible to apply for grants totaling P12 million under the CHED in support of projects on cultural preservation, environmental protection and climate-change adaptation.

And as the impact of the quality of teaching cuts across these clusters, we recommend that the Higher Education Fund give top priority to faculty development, particularly scholarships for postgraduate studies in the form of doctoral scholarships and dissertation grants to 120 faculty members from the National Network of Normal Schools.

Collectively, this will amount to at least a P322-million boost in funds for dedicated R&D. It is not much considering that our country has a lot of catching up to do in terms of R&D intensity.

Our gross expenditure on R&D only amounted to 0.12 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 when at least 1 percent is recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. This means that in 2009, we only spent roughly P9.6 billion on R&D out of P8.026-trillion GDP (in current prices) when we should have devoted a minimum of P80 billion.

Nonetheless, this is a great start that will, hopefully, motivate the government to build up on our modest R&D investment.

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