Researches and publications are the very foundation of the country’s development. This is manifested by the world’s super powers being on top on the list of the countries with the most numbers of scientific publications. For example, for the year 2004-2008, 21% of the world’s scientific publications were written by researchers from USA, followed by China (10%) and Japan (8%). Spain on the 10th place contributed 3%, while India shared 2% (http://www.statista.com/). The Philippines population is comparable to Japan and twice that of Spain, but our contribution to global scientific publications is far less than these countries let alone our ability to write and speak the English language.
In the Western Philippines University, 30% of the faculty members and staff conduct researches and present their research results in conferences and symposia. However, only around 11.1% have consistently published papers in scientific journals, in spite of varied research incentives offered by the University. Nevertheless, there are positive inspiring signs of improvement for the last five years of Research and Development (R&D) of the University: the number of university researchers has doubled and the number of paper publications increased 7x in the last five years, and their publications tends to shift from national to international level. Although promoting and enhancing R&D in a small university like WPU is difficult and complex, it’s not a reason to yield our efforts to do so.
The Palawan Scientist is one of the University’s strategies to increase the outputs of its researchers. It is noteworthy that The Palawan Scientist delivers only peer reviewed articles for the best interests of the readers and the next generation. The Palawan Scientist is globally accessible through its web site (www.palawanscientist.org) and the Philippine E-Journals (http://ejournals.ph/journals.php?letter=t). Its indexing is also in progress with the Aquatic Science and Fisheries Abstract (ASFA) and Aquatic Commons. This 8th volume of The Palawan Scientist is supposed to be the year with the most (11 articles) numbers of submitted and reviewed papers, but only five articles have made through the journal’s editorial board and external reviewers.
To the authors of the five articles and for those who made this volume possible, thank you for your patience and persistence.
Congratulations!
Benjamin J. Gonzales, PhD
Vice President
Research Development and Extension, WPU
https://doi.org/10.69721/TPS.J.2016.08.1.x
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