Where are the researchers? At a time when the nation and her citizens rage over the billions of alleged corruption by various flood control projects nationwide, the search for more researchers came up.
The question surfaced during a budget hearing in the Senate for the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). Sen. Francis Pangilinan cited World Bank data that Philippine numbers are below the average numbers for a middle-income country. A check on the said data from the World Bank shows that the Philippines, as of 2018, only has 170 researchers per million people.
The number does not come as a surprise considering that the country has more pressing socio-economic problems, compounded by governance constraints and challenges. As well, Philippine higher educational institutions, the hubs to start off research projects, remain teaching-oriented even if research and community service serve as co-equal functions of a university.
Are there even ‘research universities’ in the Philippines? Dr. Feorillo Demeterio of De La Salle University was frank in a 2022 talk: ‘The reason why it is very difficult to undertake research in our country is that we do not have real research universities to train our researchers and mentors. We now hear more and more frequently the words ‘research university,’ but there are only very few people in our country who understand the meaning of these words.’
What about the professors? Demeterio gives a food for thought: ‘If we continue to fool ourselves that we already have research universities in our country, then we will not be able to address the big problem that we have: Why it is very difficult for faculty members to undertake research?’
Studies over a decade apart have answered such a question. A qualitative study of university professors (N=40, from varied disciplines) by Rose Marie Clemeña and Sherlyne Acosta gave three issues: One, research is an add-on activity beside professors’ usual teaching and/or administrative duties. Two, professors interviewed have limited passion for research, much more feel uncomfortable to do research. And three, pairing research and teaching ‘is dysfunctional,’ with either task distracting the other for professors working in a teaching university.’
More than a decade later, a collaborative study led by Dr. Allan de Guzman of the University of Santo Tomas studied the researchers and attempted to understand their research journeys in various universities. The multi-pronged study recommended that if professors and lecturers are beginning researchers, they need to hurdle graduate education in aid of mentoring. For ‘early career researchers,’ support must be handed out on managing the tensions between being researchers and the non-research demands of university work.
For ‘established researchers’ seeking to widen their horizons as scientists, further training and capacity building and learning research practices elsewhere is needed. Finally, supporting ‘leading researchers’ should be directed to harmonize their work-life balance and situate their studies to the latest trends and priorities globally and nationally.
Mentoring matters, as the De Guzman-led study asserted, then what follows can be institutionalizing a research culture within a university. Within that environment, universities can build present and future pools of researchers. Outside of the university system, if graduates do research for government, private sector and civil society sectors, we can only hope that their sectors get ample support to directly address visible socio-economic problems through patents, policy-oriented studies, databases, and the like.
And admittedly, a Philippines that remains constrained with financial resources still has a long way to go in terms of research productivity. Even if today’s craze with world university rankings has pushed Philippine universities and colleges to accelerate research activities and publications, the county remains the least productive among Southeast Asia’s top six economies.
Using the Scopus database as source, the Spanish research thinktank SCImago shows the Philippines has produced 79,681 documents in Scopus (the world’s leading database for scholarly works). That number is at least half -or more- of what Malaysia (555,489), Singapore (465,685), Indonesia (447,794), Thailand (337,022) and Viet Nam (161,292) have produced. It seems that among the most populated countries in Asia, China, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh have mustered their numbers and published more studies in the Scopus database than the Philippines.
Such is why you can’t blame some quarters if they feel that the Philippines may be deficient in research. Though, there’s passion even for a few to make Philippine universities produce more and more, with getting recognized internationally, the promotion schemes of universities and kudos on social media as carrots.
We have the ongoing work of the most productive Filipino researcher, physician Don Eliseo Lucero-Prisno III (who just reached 400 documents in Scopus recently). He formed a consultancy group, Global Health Focus (GHF), that trains universities in developing countries (e.g., Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia), and in far-flung Philippine universities, on publishing in scholarly journals and on research methods. Even with a small team, the ten-year-old GHF roams around the country and trains throngs of researchers, then monitors the university’s publication performance.
Even if ‘victories’ include one or two new publications in Scopus, GHF and Prisno celebrate those wins to induce motivation to these universities. GHF even hands out recognitions -trophies and social media cards- to universities if they reach divisible-by-100 total papers in Scopus. He talks to university presidents and research leaders to induce more productivity, carrying a badge that GHF favors the underdogs. The Leyte native even gives running regional-level data of how universities fare in research productivity, a gentle push that rattles universities in the peripheries.
Amid the approach to induce positive psychology unto these universities, Prisno admits the Philippines still has a long way to go. Only 200-plus universities are visible in Scopus, out of nearly-2,000 higher educational institutions nationwide. Not even the top Philippine producer, the University of the Philippines System, can match the productivity of non-top three universities in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
We need to work harder Philippines, as Prisno would say on his Facebook account. ‘There is a need for the 2,000 universities and colleges in the Philippines to ramp up their research production as HEIs are considered to be the major contributors to the research outputs of any country,’ a September 8 post of his reads.
Earlier, in a July 13 post, Prisno says: ‘I would even say that research, which is one of the work pillars of universities, has never been a priority of the national agency CHED. Universities are just left behind.’
Philippine HEIs are doing the current best to make research a second-nature role, from thesis and dissertation writing to professor-produced work. Training sessions like what GHF is doing, and perhaps what universities and colleges do internally, form part of a solution to intensify research productivity individually and nationally.
The approach, even within an HEI’s department or an entire HEI, is what UST’s Dr. Joyce Arriola calls ‘research excellence framework’. That framework carries a research vision and mission, sets productivity targets, sets up a research assessment system for both researchers and the disciplines being handled, provides incentives (cash, promotions), and institutionalizes long-term infrastructural support.
Many Philippine HEIs still search for that research excellence framework, or even have yet to set up one. The itch to remain as teaching universities, and not see the dynamic interplay of research, teaching and community service, prevails. And admittedly, even to convince the ordinary university lecturer (either young or old) to see the fruits of being a researcher requires moving mountains.
Yes, financial resources, people’s limited research proficiencies, and low motivation prevail as constraints. Yet the Philippines still reels from visible socio-economic, scientific and political problems and deficiencies. The Philippine situation, for Demeterio, may require improvised solutions. Like, offering food to researchers while they’re writing, or running cost-efficient Zoom webinars on research skills that benefit multiple geographic areas.
If lawmakers are searching for the Filipino researchers, perhaps helping set up research ecosystems through cost-effective means (plus government support and push from leaders) may see younger Filipino researchers sprout and produce as much as they can. In the end, it is up to the universities, research groups and agencies if they want to motivate their flock about the gains of doing research for a beleaguered country.