Upon the school’s foundation in 1955, the research culture in Liceo de Cagayan was initially imbued upon the students through the library armchair approach wherein the students were required to make reaction papers, book reviews, and critical analyses of related literature.

 

In 1974, Dr. Rafaelita Pelaez-Pelaez officially joined the faculty and administration as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. This particular curricular enrichment laid the foundation of the University research culture as the distinguishing mark of the Licean brand of education.

 

The  Research  and  Planning  Office  was  created  in  1993  under  the  supervision of  the  Executive Vice President.  Faculty researches were undertaken on a voluntary basis.  Participating faculty members were deloaded 12 units. The Licean Research Digest, the official publication of the Research and Publication Office, was  a  biannual  publication  featuring studies  and  articles  done  by  the  faculty  as  well  as  the  thesis  and dissertations of the students of the Graduate School.

 

The office was reengineered in February 1997. Several relevant secondary data from the various offices, such as Student Personnel Services, Registrar’s Office, and the Library, were analyzed. Likewise, several journals were published, such as Service Journal of Research and Research Journal of different colleges.

 

Hon. Angel C. Alcala, former chair of the Commission on Higher Education, signed the grant for “University Status” in favor of Liceo de Cagayan on April 21, 1997. Since then, activities relevant to the fostering of the Licean research culture were enhanced in the various areas, such as institutional research, faculty individual and team researches, and faculty-student research. 

 

In 1998, the University Administration considered research excellence and relevant community extension projects of utmost importance. The Executive Vice President emphasized the University’s effort of fostering a research culture in all higher education courses to capacitate the students to do action-based research throughout their undergraduate years to prepare them for graduate studies.

 

On the other hand, the University has been sustaining community projects in response to the findings of constant researches undertaken. Some of the relevant extension projects are manifested in community-based researches and linkages of the “Safer River, Life Saver”, the University’s flagship community extension project. These highly visible projects apply the multi-sectoral approach and actively link the University with private and government agencies. These linkages focus on environmental concerns and issues.

 

On August 23, 2002, during her formal installation and investiture as second president of the University, Dr. Rafaelita Pelaez-Pelaez gave emphasis to the trilogy of functions in higher education – instruction, research, and community extension.

 

When Dr. Mariano M. Lerin, CPA was installed as President on August 23, 2007, he made research quality a priority of his administration particularly the acceptance of research outputs for publication in reputable refereed journals and their public presentations in the Philippines and abroad. 

 

In 2009, the University Administrative Order No 1 Series of 2009 was passed, renaming the Research and Planning Office into Research and Publication Office, with the planning function being transferred to a newly created University Planning Office.

 

The Research and Publication Office fulfills the knowledge-creation function of the university and has produced world-class scientific journals that earned the acceptance by indexing companies such as  : (1) Thomson Reuters (ISI) Science Journal Master List, (2) CrossRef (3) Ebsco Publishing, (4) Philippine E-Journals, (5) Google Scholar, (6) Philippine Journals Online, (7) Scholastica, and (8) Public Knowledge Project.

 

In 2012, the Asian Journal of Biodiversity (ISSN-2094-5019) was indexed in Thomson Reuters Master Journal (ISI) and was ranked Category A-1 Journal by the CHED Journal Accreditation Service while the Liceo Journal of Higher Education Research in 2010 and Asian Journal of Health in 2013 were ranked Category B. At present, the three Journals are still on the list. The Asian Journal of Business and Governance, and the Advancing Research Journals are also indexed. The journals of Liceo are international, peer-reviewed, ranked, indexed, cross-referenced (DOI), and accessed online. The journals have won international awards for Outstanding Performance of the Editorial Board, Best Quality Assurance Award for Plagiarism Detection, Best Online Journal Publication, Best Journal Website, among others.

 

The office has various linkages both national and international such as with CHED, Philippine National Museum, DOST, NorMinCHORD, NorminLABCON, NorMinCIEERD, DOH, PNRS, NRCP, BIOTA Philippines, Mosquito Dengue Fighters Association of the Philippines (MDFA), National University of Singapore, Singapore Botanic Gardens (Singapore), Chinese Academy of Sciences (China), Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand), and Oklahoma State University (USA).

 

The University won 2nd Best HEI Research Program and International Environmental Research Award both in 2010.

 

The Licean researchers reaped national and international awards: Ten Outstanding Filipino Researchers 2009, Outstanding Research Leadership Award 2010, Outstanding Editorial Board Performance, Outstanding Research Leader 2012 in Malaysia, Asia’s Best Editor 2012, Metrobank Outstanding Teacher - Higher Education Category Finalist 2013, among others. Today, the university is a member of PILA Cross Ref USA for Digital Object Identifier. The journals have ISSN numbers for both online and print forms. The office has purchased grammarly software, plagiarism detector reference checker, and SPSS software. Also, it has a functional Statistical Center that caters internal and external clients.

 

Pursuant to its noble goal, the Research and Publication Office adheres strongly to its philosophy, vision, and mission towards research excellence.