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University of the Philippines Diliman:
A Leading Research University
Serving the Country
In UP’s Second Century

Sergio S. Cao, PhD
Chancellor

With the UP centennial theme “100 Years of Excellence, Leadership, and Service” as backdrop, I state my vision for UP Diliman:

UP Diliman is an excellent university taking a leadership role in the production of new knowledge through ground-breaking research aimed at solving problems in Philippine society.

Excellent University

On March 1, 2005, I assumed the position of Chancellor of UP Diliman. In my action plan for the three-year term, I set out to pursue and support the three components of an excellent university, namely:  excellent faculty, excellent programs and excellent students.  Within this framework of an excellent university, this Chancellorship will continue to undertake initiatives to strengthen academic units, rationalize programs and course offerings, provide infrastructure and incentives for research and creative outputs, advance science and technology programs, increase the number of PhD holders, improve administrative efficiency, improve admission, generate additional resources and upgrade the welfare and benefits of faculty, staff and students.

Leadership Through Research

            UP Diliman will continue excellence in teaching. UP Diliman will distinguish itself from other Philippine higher education institutions by producing new knowledge through ground-breaking research and creative works.  It will take on a leadership position in the discovery and dissemination of this new knowledge far and wide, thereby enhancing its global prestige as a research university. The foundation of this leadership will be its deep faculty resources and its broad and diverse programs.

UP Diliman will take the lead in both basic and applied research. As UP Diliman puts emphasis on improving basic research because the latter makes possible the discoveries, innovations, and tools needed for applied research, it also takes the lead in interdisciplinary research.

Service through Research

As UP Diliman produces new knowledge, it will be relevant to the country and will tackle important issues confronting the Filipino people. Last January 14, 2008, after the conferment of the rank of National Scientist on Dr. Lourdes Cruz of the Marine Science Institute who has also done community development work among the Aetas in Morong, Bataan, she said, “Bilang scientists, iniisip namin kung paano magagamit ang syensya at technologia upang makatulong sa mga mahihirap na komunidad . . . Hindi puedeng science at technology lang ang gagamitin dahil malaki ang social component ng community development.”

Many UP scientists and technologists are already doing this. UP Diliman will widen the scope of this service and will do research to solve Philippine societal needs and problems which are inherently interdisciplinary and multidimensional.
           
Interdisciplinary Research

But interdisciplinary research is not easy to do. UP Diliman will therefore make it easier for researchers from different disciplines to do research together. The Open Grants Program was put up to encourage research projects requiring higher budgets than the usual grants from the University. Researches that are interdisciplinary, cutting edge, and far-reaching are promoted. Some of the projects with social development components are: 

• The Digital Provide: Bridging Rural Communities Through Emerging, Disruptive and Sustaining Information Technologies and Social Infrastructure (involving researchers from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and the Department of Sociology)

• Community Empowerment: An Interdisciplinary Research on Alternative Model Towards Sustainable Tourism (involving researchers from the Asian Institute of Tourism, College of Architecture, College of Home Economics, and the College of Human Kinetics )

• Systems Approach to Teacher Mentoring and Urban Poor Student Achievement (involving researchers from the College of Education, College of Social Work and Community Development, and the National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development)

• Development of Inter-Disciplinary Signal Processing for Pinoy Program: Filipino Vowels and Emotions  (involving researchers from the Department of Speech Communication and Theater Arts, Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature, College of Music, and the  College of Engineering)

Flagship Programs

This Chancellorship will pursue the following flagship programs:

• Curriculum development initiatives will be encouraged and supported to revise or institute courses that will allow conceptualization of research and creative works and contextualization in Philippine setting.

• Open Grants Program to include Initiatives in Culture and Arts particularly in producing original creative works will be sustained and augmented.

• New PhD Incentive Program to include proposals for Philippine grounded innovative and cross-disciplinary post-doctoral research addressing Philippine problems will be instituted.

• An Institute of Design and Creative Technologies drawing from the strength of different colleges (e.g. the Colleges of Fine Arts, Architecture, Home Economics, Music, Mass Communication, Arts and Letters, Engineering, Science) will be created.

• A support program for student research and creative works (e.g. the Support Fund for Young Artists has already been proposed for approval of the Board of Regents on January 25, 2008) will be launched.

• The National Science  Complex will be completed and the Engineering R&D for Technology Project of the National Graduate School of Engineering will be fully implemented.

Enabling Environment

While the primary role of the UP Diliman faculty is to produce new knowledge through research and creative works, the primary function of the UP Diliman Chancellor is to provide an enabling environment within which the faculty can perform well this primary role. This chancellorship will:

• Establish incentives for researchers to do basic, applied, and interdisciplinary research
• Establish linkages with local and international research and education institutions
• Generate resources for funding and counterpart funding of research projects
• Rationalize and revitalize Diliman administrative infrastructure to enhance support for research and creative activities
• Enhance the organizational culture of service and efficiency in UP Diliman’s bureaucracy
• Expand UP Diliman’s existing infrastructure for technology incubation, transfer and utilization.
• Upgrade employee and student welfare and benefits
• Provide a clean and healthy campus

In the Service of the Filipino

UP Diliman does not only develop an excellent culture of research among its faculty and students; it also urges them to be committed to the university’s mission, i.e., to be of service to the Filipino.  

To put into action such commitment students are first trained to become responsible stewards and citizens. UP Diliman shapes the character of its students by helping them acquire wisdom, cultivate moral discernment, uphold truth, and respect themselves and others. These values are relentlessly communicated so that our graduates can make a difference in serving our people.