Farmer Neglect – Blame Not PH Govt But The University Of The Philippines!

Our friend Jerry R Yapo shares the news that the University of the Philippines, UP, is now the 95th university in the world as listed in the Times Higher Education, THE, 2019 rankings release, according to ANN (Author Not Named, "UP Achieves Top 100 Ranking In THE Asia," 02 May 2019, UP Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, ovpaa.up.edu.ph). 

I'm a teacher, UP '65, BS Agriculture major in Ag Education, Civil Service eligible at the Professional Level. And I have been a science writer and Editor in Chief since 1975, or 44 years ago. So, watch me at work!

Now, what are THE's rankings saying? Here's a table from ANN (with my headings):

University of the Philippines in 2019 THE University Rankings
THE (Times Higher Education) Rankings	World**	Asia**
Overall Rank	–	38.1
Research (volume, income & reputation)	16.4	18.9
Teaching (learning environment)	21.7	24.2
Industry Income (knowledge transfer)	35.8	35.8
International Outlook (staff, students & research)	39.5	39.5
Citations (published references to published papers)	69.1	69.1
** Values listed from highest rank to lowest by Frank A Hilario

All these bits of data are confusing because the news says UP is now 95th in rank in the world's universities, and yet the table above, whose data I got from ANN's report on the UP OVPAA  page, does not have a World Overall Ranking and puts UP at rank 38th among Asian universities.

Never mind!

From the table above, I will note only 3 items:

(1)   Research (volume, income & reputation)

(2)   Citations (published references to published papers)

(3)   Industry income (knowledge transfer)

Note that the above table says that UP Research is ranked 16.4 in the world and 18.9 in Asia – that's sky high!

Now, I say Research must always pass the next stage, which is Publication – THE missed but should have included this item – because converting research results into publishable technical papers is required by the world of knowledge. That's why I put in parentheses for Citations (published references to published papers).

Now, that THE table does not show you that it is only from papers published that you get the values & therefore the rankings for Citation – you cannot get cited if you have not been published in the first place!

So, how does our UP rank in Citations? World 69.1 and Asia 69.1. Now:

Question: In Citations, why is not UP ranked World 16.4 and Asia 18.9 as in Research?
Answer: Because UP is neglecting the publication of technical papers!

There is so much research that UP has done in the last 111 years, but not much has been converted into technical papers published – and therefore, not much has been converted into popular information for the farmers.

And therefore, for the public and the farmers, there has not been much "Industry income (knowledge transfer)" from UP!

If there is one institution to blame for neglect of new and improved knowledge in agriculture by professionals – not to mention by government officials – it is the national university, the University of the Philippines!517