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| NAST strategic plan |
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The National Academy of Science and Technology has formulated as its vision that of a progressive Philippines anchored on science. Being the highest scientific organization of the country, the Academy must lead in bringing the benefits of science and technology to the Philippine state, economy and society. It must also anticipate and, if possible, provide science-based solutions to its most difficult challenges. This mission must be based on its knowledge and continuing assessment of the needs of the Philippines. To bring that about, it is presenting a Strategic Plan that will pursue its mandate to provide science-based policy advice to the state, society and nation, to recognize outstanding S&T achievements, and to link with other academies and scientific organizations.
The Strategic Plan will embody the emphases of its activities in a rolling six-year program. This program will have four major components:
These components form an integrated whole because the Academy needs all of them in order to fulfill its responsibilities to both the nation and the international scientific community. However, each component plays a different role in the life of the Academy. Continuing Concerns encompass our tasks as a scientific organization in the propagation of science and technology. As senior members of the scientific community, we must make sure that the nation grows in its appreciation and utilization of what S&T can offer. Support Mobilization is our way of reaching out to state and society so that they too may promote science and technology. Both Concerns and Support Mobilization promote and support S&T, but are not themselves the scientific enterprise. It is expected that the Academy will undertake Concerns and Support Mobilization throughout its life. It is the Themes and Special Initiatives that focus on the substance of S&T – our researches, our conclusions, our discoveries and our inventions. They enrich the individual disciplines from which we come, and the world of science as a whole. Although scientists may devote their lives to a research problem within a Theme or Special Initiative, for purposes of programming our activities, we have regarded these two programs as having shorter life-spans than Continuing Concerns in terms of the emphasis and support of the Academy. The relatively short time for a Theme will allow the Academy to concentrate its energies on a small but vital set of issues, deepen its analysis of these issues, and engage minds from other disciplines to enrich the discussion with their complementary ideas, critiques and challenges. Six has been set as the arbitrary number of years since we have six divisions. The six-year cycle ensures that each Division will play the role of a Lead Division at all times and will gear its activities on that chosen topic until its next turn in the cycle of our Annual Scientific Meetings comes again. Themes will be led by Divisions, while Special Initiatives may be pursued by a Member or a group of Members. Both of course will have Academy Support. I. The Continuing Concerns The Academy has the responsibility, as a body of scientists, to promote science and technology in the Philippines and to take its place as an active member of the international scientific community. In this Strategic Plan, this responsibility is embraced as three overarching Continuing Concerns:
The Academy will pursue them through a comprehensive multi-disciplinary approach throughout its existence. The Academy will appoint a Standing Committee for each Concern, with members drawn from as many Divisions as appropriate. The Executive Council shall ensure that study on the Concern proceeds on a continuous basis, and that its recommendations for policy and action are heard, promoted and implemented. The Standing Committee will plan for the development of each Concern. The program may include research fellowships, round table discussions, science information fora, legislative fora, publications, and such other activities that the Committee deems appropriate. It may generate funding support for these purposes with the assistance of the Executive Council. Each Standing Committee shall report to the Executive Council on its progress regularly. Those reports will be shared with all Members of the Academy for their comments, critiques and continuing support. Members are encouraged to get involved in these Continuing Concerns even if they are not in the Standing Committees. A. Promotion of Science Education and Culture. If the country is to progress, it must develop a culture that recognizes the ways of thought, findings and limitations of science. It must also develop and recognize the scientific capability of persons and institutions that will further contribute to the growth of science and technology. To echo the Mission Statement of the Inter-Academy Panel to which we belong:
The Academy has not been remiss in emphasizing the importance of science education and culture. This Strategic Plan therefore only underscores its importance and pledges to continue its efforts to promote science education and culture. Our programs in pursuit of this Continuing Concern are the following:
The Academy has begun several other programs to promote science education and culture:
The plan of the Academy within this Continuing Concern is to strengthen these efforts and to develop others that will lead to an improved science education and a greater acceptance of a science culture in our country. B. Recognition of and Support for S&T Professionals and Institutions. The country also needs a continuous stream of S&T specialists who will devote their lives to the furtherance of the scientific enterprise. For this purpose, the Academy will recognize and support outstanding scientists and, to the extent possible, nurture their younger colleagues and S&T institutions. Our programs of recognition are in support of this Continuing Concern. These include:
The plan of the Academy within this Continuing Concern is to make our recognition system more financially viable so that the budget will not be a constraint to the election of outstanding scientists to the Academy and to the nomination of the best among us to be National Scientists. We shall also endeavor to streamline our awards system so that they will become better known and more competitive. We also want, through them, to be able to encourage more scholars and students from other regions of the country to aspire for and win a NAST Award. Likewise, we will need to make our Research Fellowships better able to support the exemplary research of our Members. The Academy participated in 2003-2004 in the first panel of the InterAcademy Council on how to promote worldwide capacities in science and technology. The team of authors from twelve countries, including the Philippines, prepared Inventing a Better Future: Promoting Worldwide Capacities in Science and Technology (Amsterdam: IAC, 2004) whose recommendations are guiding academies throughout the world. Some of our work in this area may be focused on developing particular types of scientists and scientific institutions. For instance, for engineering education, the Engineering Sciences Division is now leading in building consensus on the country’s position on membership in the Washington Accord. The Division is also forging a collaboration with the Department of Foreign Affairs to fund the promotion and enhancement of engineering education and engineering services. Meanwhile, the Health Sciences Division is looking into the situation of medical education and how to retain more medical practitioners and researchers. Other Divisions may develop similar endeavors on behalf of their specialists and institutions. C. Incorporation of S&T in Legislation and National Policies. In principle, science academies have great potential to contribute to science-based decision making by governments and other institutions. Traditionally, they have been asked to contribute to “policy for science,” or to legislation and other policies that tackle how the state may support the profession of science and their institutions and professionals. Increasingly, they have also been called upon to engage in “science for policy.” This would include legislation and other policies that incorporate or are illumined by scientific findings and advances. Science can be applied to issues in health, agriculture, social services, finance and indeed in all areas of public life. The work of the Academy along this Continuing Concern has been along the following lines:
In implementing this Continuing Concern, the Academy will continue to exercise our initiative in proposing policies for science and for science-based policies in vital areas of our national life. We will also continue to respond to requests by the various House and Senate committees and by agencies of the Executive branch for our comments on draft legislation and other national policies. The Academy recognizes that at this stage of this country’s development, it faces significant problems in the solution of which science and technology are indispensable. The Academy will focus, on a three-year basis, on a set of selected themes judged to be of strategic and immediate importance to the Philippines. These will be the Themes chosen for the Annual Scientific Meetings. As such, their promotion and discussion will be the main responsibility of a Lead Division, with substantial support and participation from other Divisions of the Academy. Each Theme will be the subject of intensive discussion during an Annual Scientific Meeting, as well as of round-table discussions, workshops and other fora, research fellowships, publications and other activities of the Academy for six (6) years. This will imply the following activities: a. If NAST is to have a three-year cycle focused on the themes of the ASM, it should approve, in the February Academy meeting of any given year, the Theme proposed by the Division in charge at least three years hence. b. The Division in charge of an ASM should plan for a three-year analysis of the Theme it has chosen. The ASM may be the launching pad of these activities, or it may be their culminating activity. The Academy will encourage each Division to develop a theme as it sees fit and appropriate. It will in no way restrict the creativity of the membership in advancing understanding of the chosen themes. For instance,
The pursuit of each Theme, as in the Continuing Concerns, will involve as many Academicians as possible. This involvement may take one of several possible modes, with our experience in the last two years serving as models for three options: a.The Lead Division may request the other Divisions to assist it in developing its program for the nation. This follows the mode done by the Agricultural Sciences Division when it chose “Philippine Agriculture 2020” as its theme. Centering on a long-term strategic plan for agriculture, the PA 2020 draft was co-written with academicians from the Biological Sciences Division, the Health Sciences Division, and the Social Sciences Division since certain aspects of the Plan touched on these fields. b.The Divisions may support the Lead Division by providing vigorous critiques, from the perspectives of their disciplines, of the theme and program presented by the Lead Division. This was also part of ASD’s strategy in ASM 2005. Thus, in ASM 2005, all the Divisions participated by providing a critique of the PA 2020 draft. Those critiques have been incorporated into the draft Plan. c. The Lead Division may present a concept paper on its theme, and invite the other Divisions to study developments arising from it from the perspective of their disciplines. This is the model followed in “The Century of Biology” chosen by the Biological Sciences Division for the 2006 ASM. All Divisions have been requested to tackle facets of the theme that are relevant to their fields of specialization during the forthcoming ASM in July. The Social Science Division, for its part, decided to have round-table discussions on the intersection of the social sciences and biology: the first, a two-part RTD on “Biology as Destiny?” and the second on “Biological Resource Management and our Common Future.” Other divisions may choose a similar pre-ASM schedule, or have programs afterwards discussing the implications of the ASM discussions on their respective fields. The latter may include follow-ups on our Resolutions to make them more meaningful and more directly connected to policy change and reform1. These options are not the only possibilities. The Divisions are encouraged to find other modes by which they can analyze the issue in more depth and breadth through the participation of colleagues from other disciplines. Special Initiatives will include research, publications or seminars that an Academician or group of Academicians may propose for funding support or sponsorship by the Academy. Following our tradition, a research fellowship is given for a year and may be renewed for another year. Publications or seminars may be done in shorter periods of time. These Initiatives may be within the specialization of the Member, and not fall within any of the Themes already ongoing in any given year. However, there will be no prohibition in having research fellowships and other grants of the Academy be within the content-area of a Theme. 1 What differentiates this mode from the first is that the third provides separate studies relevant to the theme. In the case of the first mode, the contributions of the other Divisions are integrated into the Lead Division’s efforts. Two fine examples of Special Initiatives are the efforts of Academician Asuncion Raymundo on bioremediation and Academician Teodulo Topacio in the campaign against rabies. Aware of the worsening pollution of the environment by persistent organic compounds and anticipating the pressure from heavy metals with the revitalization of the mining industry, Acd. Raymundo and like-minded members of the NAST mobilized a national network of microbiologists, chemists and environmentalists to inquire into the nature, extent and consequences of the presence of these deleterious substances in the environment. They have been appearing in public fora, advising government and the private sector on how microbial organisms and some plants can be harnessed to degrade and/or sequester these harmful substances. Acd. Topacio on the other hand has been very active in the articulation and crafting of programs both at the national and local levels in the eradication of rabies. This set of activities encompasses how research and action on the Continuing Concerns, the Themes, and the Special Initiatives will involve other scientific organizations, universities, government agencies and other S&T stakeholders. For this purpose, the Academy shall endeavor to use its prestige to rally other institutions to pay attention to these issues not only by their involvement in its public meetings but also through such devices as a national focus on a continuing concern or theme, the promulgation of a NAST President’s Statement, and the circulation of a NAST Resolution, and the publication of a NAST White Paper. A. A National Focus on a Theme. The Academy may seek a presidential proclamation of a particular year as the Year of a Theme (e.g., 2008 as The Year of Biotechnology) similar to the annual pronouncements of the United Nations. Alternatively, or in conjunction with that proclamation, the NAST may secure the commitment of government departments and international organizations for their respective research agencies to provide funds and resources in support of that Theme’s development. The NAST may also recommend to academic and research institutions that the various facets of a Theme be the subject of research, dissemination and publication throughout that year. It would also rally other stakeholders such as business and industry to consider possibilities of commercialization, media to popularize these issues, universities to undertake special seminars or courses on these issues, and so on.
B. “The NAST President’s Statements.” The President of the Academy may issue a Statement when there is a matter of immediate and urgent concern to the nation where the voice of science and technology must be heard. A Statement is a public position of the Academy on a scientific or societal problem. Each Statement will introduce the issue, state its S&T basis (and therefore the rationale for NAST involvement), and declare the recommendation, policy proposal or position of the Academy on the issue. It will be brief but will be better fleshed out than a NAST Resolution. A Statement may be based on a finding and recommendation of a Standing Committee on a Continuing Concern, the result of a Round Table Discussion, or a NAST Resolution promulgated during an Annual Scientific Meeting. It may also be based on the recommendations of a Task Force called by the President or the Executive Council for that purpose. C. NAST Resolutions. A Resolution is a product of an Academy’s program, be it a round-table discussion, a workshop, or a discussion at an Annual Scientific Meeting. It embodies the conclusions of the body of Academicians and other stakeholders on an issue that has been publicly presented and discussed. It states the premises for the resolution, the actions expected to be done, and the institutions and persons the Academy deems appropriate to do something about the situation. NAST has produced such resolutions for ASMs for a long time. Under this Strategic Plan, more thorough follow-up of the fate of our Resolutions will be undertaken. For a Resolution requiring urgent action, the Executive Council may decide to lend it the gravitas of the NAST leadership by transforming it into a NAST President’s Statement.
D. NAST White Papers. A NAST White Paper on the other hand is a more lengthy and detailed exposition of a national concern – be it a problem, a challenge or an opportunity. It will explain more fully the bases, origins and consequences of the concern and NAST’s recommendations on how it may be resolved beneficially. Very often it will be the commissioned output of Academicians most knowledgeable on the subject working closely with other experts here and abroad.
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