PH Science Journals & The Game Of Change Where UP Is The Loser!

From the Philippine Council for Health Research & Development, PCHRD, Jwynne Gwyneth Macan says, "UP Outranks Harvard, Oxford In Most Recent World University Rankings For Health Citations" (31 July 2019,  pchrd.dost.gov.ph). That is for UP Manila good news – for the entire UP System, consuelo de bobo, Spanish for consolation for the fool. 

I am a UP alumnus, 1965. The UP System has not been world-class in technical publications in the last 100 years! Among its 8 units – UP Baguio, UP Cebu, UP Diliman, UP Los Baños, UP Manila, UP Mindanao, UP Visayas, and UP Open University – I know only of UP Los Baños having an ISI-listed journal, the Philippine Agricultural Scientist, PAS. I know because I helped then-Editor in Chief OK Bautista in raising the editing standards of the PAS to world-class or on par with those of ISI/Web of Knowledge.

This is an Editor in Chief speaking, the one-man band who brought the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, PJCS, 25 years old, from being perpetually late 3 years to up-to-date and ISI. He was the all-digital secretary, editor, layout artist working up to the portable document format for printing. That belongs to the Guinness Book Of World Records.

Working with the PJCS, when I began in 2003, I was already 63 years old. Today I say, at almost 79, if I can do digital, you can do digital!

This is the news from Ms Jwynne:

The University of the Philippines (UP) obtains high citation scores in the 2019 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. With a score of 98.8, the university beats prominent world universities such as Harvard University, the University of Oxford and Stanford University for citations in clinical and pre-clinical health researches.

Ms Jwynne says that "Citation scores indicate the number of times a research has been cited in other research (publications)," that is, "an indicator of the impact or influence of (research results published in that field)."

A citation score of 98.8, I say that is Wow! It also means that UP Manila scientists have been publishing their health research outputs assiduously. So why cannot the other 6 UP units follow UP Manila's ISI example with their publications? They owe it to the Filipino people who pay taxes from where they get their salaries and/or perks!

The one who shared the Facebook post (image above), Santiago R Obien, SRO, knows what I can do as Editor in Chief with digital prowess, as I have myself desktop-published 3 of his beloved books. If you did not know, SRO personally knows world-class standards. He is the former Executive Director of PhilRice, the one who built PhilRice from chicken scratch to international standards that even IRRI acknowledges.

UP, wake UP! from your slumber of 100 years. The digital world of publishing has been staring you in the face for at least the last 20 years while you are snoring! When you wake up, be kind to yourself, rub your eyes and email me at frankahilario@gmail.com. Well, you have to pay for being late!@517