3. Capability vs performance

During its first 10 years, the number of papers produced per PhD in the UPD College of Science increased to a yearly average of 4.7 in 1991-1993 (Table 1). Only a third of this was published, however. And the percentage that appeared in ISI-indexed journals was reduced through the years to 15 in 1991-1993 -- only 5 percent of the total number of papers produced.

Two academic institutions abroad, with related disciplines like those of the UPD College of Science, had SCI-indexed publications consisting of 52 percent and 83 percent of published papers. They are the Faculty of Science of the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the University of California at San Diego (NUS Bulletin of the Faculty of Science 1988-1993 and Scripps Annual Reports 1990-1992).

The average yearly publications per PhD from NUS were more than 10 times those of the UPD College of Science, or 2.53 against 0.24.

Table 1. Number of papers produced by PhDs in the College of Science faculty, University of the Philippines Diliman (Yearly mean per PhD)

Data from the Dean's Office. An earlier version of this table was published in Diliman Review 47(2):11-18, 1999.
^aln journals covered by the Science Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information.
^bOf published papers.

UP Diliman produced 27 ISI-indexed publications in 1995. All of these were from the College of Science, 15 of them from the Marine Science Institute. The outputs of UP Los Banos, UP Manila, and UP Visayas were 16, 14, and 3. Note that UP had nearly 4,500 teaching and research staff during this time, more than half of them with graduate degrees.

On the other hand, with only about 60 PhDs, the Los Baños-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) produced 106 ISI-indexed publications in 1995. The big difference is partly explained by the teaching load at UP. But how many more are in the research staff?

The main reason is of course the numerous papers that UP produced but did not count. They are the unpublished papers and gray literature (published papers without adequate peer review and not widely accessible for international peer verification of results). In the UPD College of Science, they consisted 95 percent of total (Table 1). Production of such papers continued because the University rewarded their authors.

(The most outstanding Filipino scientist who has done his work in the Philippines was produced by IRRI. Dr. Bienvenido Juliano is the only Filipino listed in the ISI Highly Cited Researchers since 1981. These consist of 6,520 scientists worldwide in 21 categories in life sciences, medicine, physical sciences, engineering, and social sciences. Singapore is the only other ASEAN country included, with four highly cited researchers from NUS. See: http://isihighlycited.com)

Since the UPD College of Science had the highest college output (27 publications against 33 for the rest of UP in 1995), representing only 5 percent of papers produced, the College could also have spent the most amount of time and money for unpublished papers and gray literature.

Yet in 1997 when my professorial chair was up for renewal at the UPD College of Science, I filled out the appropriate blanks for international publications, got rid of the rest of the form’s pages that I considered irrelevant, and submitted only that one page with two-three lines filled out. I lost my professorial chair (which I don’t recall how I got).

The problems described above were prevalent throughout the University. The major cause was the failure to use objective indicators to evaluate research proposals and output. The common way of evaluation was peer judgment or expert opinion (of which we do not have enough).

4. Poor rating in university rankings?

In the ranking of world universities, the criteria used may be grouped into expert opinion, capability indicators, and performance indicators. Two commonly cited rankings are the THES-QS World University Rankings (2004-2006) and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s "Academic Ranking of World Universities" (2003-2006).

THES-QS rankings used largely expert opinion (40%), faculty/student ratio (20%), other non-performance indicators (20%), and research citations (20%), which are the only objective indicator of academic performance (7). Four Philippine universities made it in the world’s top 500. Their rankings: UP 299, La Salle 392, Ateneo 484, and UST 500.

Expert opinion has been shown to have no correlation with bibliometric scores. “We criticize the recent expert-based rankings by showing that the correlation of expert score and bibliometric outcomes is practically zero. This finding casts severe doubts on the reliability of these expert-based rankings” (Leiden University, The Netherlands, 2005)

The rankings done by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2003-2006, on the other hand, used only objective indicators of academic and research performance. The study used the following: alumni and staff winning prizes and awards (30%), articles covered in major citation indexes (20%), highly cited researchers (20%), articles published in the journals Nature and Science (20%), and the per capita academic performance of an institution (10%).

The source of publications and citations data was ISI’s major indexes. In these rankings, none from the Philippines has yet made the top 100 in the Asia Pacific or in the top 500 in the world (8).
The above examples show the general weakness in academic or research performance of Philippine universities compared with their academic capabilities.

5. Philippines' S&T performance

The national publication output would be a reflection of that at UP. Among seven nations in the region -- Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines -- we had the least progress in S&T between 1981 and 1995 (9, 10).

Our Asian neighbors had 37-300 percent increases in ISI-indexed publications in 1994-1995 over their 1981-1992 average figures; the Philippines performance increased by only 7 percent. Smaller Taiwan had 23 times and tiny Singapore had 6 times more publications than the Philippines, which had 20 times more people than Singapore in 1995. Recent ISI data show that Vietnam has already passed the Philippines in number of publications.

Whereas we relied mainly on peer judgment, the countries above, which have left us behind, used the established indicators -- publications in international peer-reviewed journals -- to measure performance and progress.

Despite its poor S&T performance in 1981-1995, the DOST placed a 33-page advertisement in the Scientific American in February 1996 under the banner "Globally Competitive Philippines." It claims pioneering efforts in metals technology, materials science, electronics, information technology, “and, most especially, biotechnology.” Who were we kidding?

Using SCI-indexed publications, the same science magazine ranked the Philippines’ S&T performance a poor no. 60 in the world in 1995, below all the countries mentioned above except Indonesia (3). The advertisement must have cost the country millions of pesos and worldwide embarrassment. Resorting to publicity and claims of achievements will not improve performance.

6. UP and national progress

The crucial role of science and technology in the economic transformation was again shown by the rapid growth of China, which has become the fifth leading nation in terms of its share of the world’s scientific publications (11). On the other hand, the Philippines performance in S&T, which was partly the fault of the University of the Philippines, proves RP’s lack of the requisite research ability and political leadership such a transformation needs.

UNDP’s Human Development Reports using social and economic indicators show a nation’s development compared with those of others. Among 177 countries and territories in 1997 and 1998, the Philippines ranked no. 77, but this dropped to no. 83-85 in 2000-2004. Other indicators may show a better or worse Philippines.

For example, “We could abandon gross national product (GNP) as an indicator of economic well-being; it suggests to the consumer that our economies need take no account of sustainability. In the United States, per capita GNP rose by 49% during 1976-98, whereas per capita ‘genuine progress’ (the economy's output with environmental and social costs subtracted and added weight given to education, health, etc.) declined by 30%” (12).

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Celebrating the UP Centennial
3. Capability vs performance
7. Why NAST failed?
9. Renaissance