More than 600 Lasallian faculty members and students were recognized for their research achievements in Gawad Saliksik 2024 held at the Verdure, Henry Sy Sr. Hall last February 2.
Of the honorees, 286 instructors have been awarded for publishing in journals—48 of whom had their research works credited in the Scopus database—and 93 have received honors for their participation in external projects.
Among these awardees are Dr. Shung Fung Chiu from the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Dr. Jeremiah Joven Joaquin and Dr. Hazel Biana from the Department of Philosophy, who were recognized for contributing to Nature, one of the world’s leading multidisciplinary journals.
Over 200 Lasallian student researchers were also honored for their published outputs, 79 of whom received accolades for their undergraduate papers, 46 for their senior high school research, and the rest for their postgraduate works.
The awardees’ contributions to accredited journals and external projects also prompted discussions in a forum on how the University will move forward in terms of research.
When asked how DLSU’s “treasury of research” can influence critical dialogue on socio-political issues, Vice President for Research and Innovation Dr. Raymond Tan noted that Lasallians “tend to be shy, introverted, or perhaps not particularly inclined to bask in the limelight.”
“Trying to influence [others] to do good has two aspects to it… [First,] you need to make sure that you have this ability to do your homework properly so that what you’re saying actually has substance. The second part of it is having the willingness to be in the limelight,” he answered.
The administration revealed its plans moving forward in achieving its goal of being a “green research university” as part of a four-year strategic plan they declared during the start of the academic year.
To make graduate programs a more prominent part of the University’s education portfolio, DLSU President Br. Bernard Oca FSC announced that tuition fees for PhD students will be lowered, as decided during the President’s Council held earlier on the same day.
“We are counting on our graduate programs by research as our way to complete our transition into a robust and functional research university,” Oca said.
Provost Dr. Robert Roleda shared that the University still lags behind its peers in terms of citations despite producing a lot of research outputs. Tan detailed that DLSU lacks international collaborations, as only 30 percent of the University’s over 1,000 annual publications are done with international partners—lower than the above-40-percent rate of Ateneo de Manila University, University of the Philippines, and University of Santo Tomas.
“We need to have our voices better heard in the conversations within communities. The least we can do is to place our works in more visible forums,” Roleda stated.
University Fellow Arnulfo Azcarraga likewise emphasized that publications must be disseminated in journals of high-quality peer evaluation and paper review.
“Those are the only channels where the review process will amount to a real validation that we know our science, that we have interpreted our results correctly, and that our methodology is pertinent and ethical,” Azcarraga expressed.
