Press Release
January 8, 2008

ANGARA ENVISIONS U.P. AS A LEADING RESEARCH UNIVERSITY IN ASIA

Senator Edgardo J. Angara envisions the University of the Philippines (UP), which will launch its centennial year with a mammoth kickoff tomorrow, to be the leading research university not only in the country. but in the region as well.

"U.P. should strengthen its position as the leading research university, firming up its science and technology programs, and developing a community of scholars comparable to those of the best universities in the world," he said.

Angara is a former UP President and the chairman of the UP Centennial Commission which is raising P5 billion for the University, primarily for faculty development.

He added, "science and technology research is the direction of the future. The key to prosperity in today's world is a well-educated, technically skilled workforce producing high value added, knowledge intensive goods and services. Globally, jobs and wealth are created through S&T."

Angara explained that science graduates provide a principal source of innovation and growth in the modern economy. The quality of undergraduate science education directly affects both the number of scientists and the capabilities of students who will later on become engineers, researchers and teachers.

Recently, The Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquarelli Symonds (THES-QS) World University Rankings placed UP at 398th out of 500 universities around the world, down from last year's 299 th place. The THES-QS World University Rankings is an annual publication of university rankings based on peer review, recruiter review, international faculty score, international students score, faculty/student score, and citations. Attributes such as the quality of its research, research training, teaching and employability are considered significantly in the rankings.

"Filipino students would have the benefit of world class education if our premiere national university is given the support needed to compete with the best in the world. To achieve that, UP must be able to develop and retain good faculty and have the best instructional facilities," Angara said.

Currently, the University of the Philippines (UP) budget contains an allotment of P51.5 million for graduate scholarships and P86 million for the UP Diliman Engineering Complex.

The 22-hectare Diliman Science Complex and Technology Incubation Park at the UP Diliman campus is the Philippines' version of Stanford University-Silicon Valley - a high-technology hub close to a research university. The district currently hosts the National Institutes of Natural Science, Geological Sciences, Marine Science, Physics, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Meteorology, and a Mathematics department.

"The hub will serve as the national center for the generation (R&D) and application of new knowledge in the natural and applied sciences, and mathematics. It will enable our PhDs to pursue R&D, and make it possible for us to reinforce the training of our next generation of MS and PhD students in the sciences and engineering. It would also establish linkages with other state and private institutions of higher learning as well as other techno-incubation parks," explained Angara.

The science park will provide institutional facilities, including advanced laboratories, and a nurturing environment that would sustain S&T development.

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