UP President, UP Diliman Chancellor address SERDEF general assembly

UP President Alfredo E. Pascual and UP Diliman Chancellor Caesar A. Saloma, addressing the SERDEF annual general membership meeting held on Friday, May 13, both took note of the alliance between the UP Institute for Small-Scale Industries and SERDEF and remarked how the work of the two partners would promote the University’s vision of taking a leadership role in the economic development of the country.

President Pascual said he had begun nurturing this vision since he assumed the presidency of UP last February. “Taking a leadership role is being able to find solutions to the festering socio-economic problems of the country,” he said. With the UP ISSI-SERDEF partnership in entrepreneurship promotion, there will be more people not seeking to be employed but rather wanting to set up productive businesses that would increase the economic pie to push national development forward.

UP, he emphasized, should strengthen its ability to do research in order to develop solutions to technical, societal and economic problems. Research output should eventually go to the community and address social problems. “There will be a gap.” he averred. “We need entrepreneurs to connect research output to the market.” Unless the research output is translated into products that can be sold and address the needs of the community, “we cannot achieve the full value of the research.” “Entrepreneurship will link the research laboratory with the market,” he stressed.

Affirming what President Pascual said, Chancellor Saloma, in his own talk,  expounded on the triple role of UP as a research university, graduate university, and public service university. As a public service university, UP should find solutions to the problems of society, he added.

“UP is a microcosm of the larger society,” the Chancellor declared. “It should be a great source of solutions.” The role of SERDEF in partnering with UP ISSI to build an enterprising society that will in turn create national prosperity is one good solution, he said.

UP President Pascual also pointed to the need to inject entrepreneurship concepts and values into UP education, so that engineers and social scientists, for example, can translate their work into output that can find use and value in the market. He urged the SERDEF and UP ISSI to take steps to do this.

“We should link the work of UP ISSI and SERDEF with the academic programs of UP, President Pascual said. He offered assurance that “UP is here to help and support the aspirations of the SERDEF and the UP ISSI.”  This is echoed in the Chancellor’s remark that “there should be synergy among UP Diliman units — to make a difference in the lives of people in Philippine society.”  He also referred to the dream of UP ISSI Director and SERDEF Executive Director Nestor Raneses for ISSI to become a national institute for technology research and development for the small business sector.

Finally, President Pascual observed that the SERDEF needed new blood – in order to insure its life and value as an organization.

Chancellor Saloma also shared with the SERDEF-UP ISSI audience the plans for UP Diliman in the next two years.