Research - St. Paul University Manila

RESEARCH AGENDA 2020-2026

The research agenda of St. Paul University Manila from the academic year 2020-2021 to 2022-2023, extended to 2026, is guided by key ethical foundations.

Statement of Objectives

Paulinian Core Values. This stems from the core values deeply ingrained in any of life and mission of the Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres (SPC). As a Christ-centered higher education institution, moved by charity to a commitment to mission unique to the SPC – education, health, and pastoral work – and gifted with a charism for service to the community, especially the marginalized, St. Paul university Manila shall pool together resources to ensure that research is used towards the greater service of communities in need, the academe, the Church, and enterprises. The university shall strive to conduct research that is compassionate – sensitive to the plight of people in need and instrumental in the spreading of even greater compassion.

Indigenous Mindset. The university, aware of how divided humans are of the need to heal relationships that constitute the integrity of humans and other beings, shall promote research areas that strive to rebuild destroyed relationships and create new ones that mitigate the consequences of harmful ones. The university is cognizant that all social problems stem from the destruction of integral relationships and the challenge is to heal them by building new knowledge that empowers one to take healing action.

Restorative Justice. One of the four major ethical principles, it requires that research actively seeks to serve what is due to communities. Key to justice that restores is research that knows the ideal state of things and in what ways those things can be brought back to its integral state with the least harm for all of creation. Only research that explains it ultimate value to the restorative process is considered most ideal and worth pursuing.

Integral Human Development. Informed and inspired by the Catholic Social Teachings, the university seeks to contribute to integral human development by conducting research. All research must strive towards the development of not only one area of human life, but more appropriately all the areas and dimensions of it. All research must be able to express how one action affects other actions, to provide both feedback and feedforward to the human system.

The following are the College Research Centers (CRC):

College of Education and Liberal Art’s Center for Stigma Reduction Research (CSRR)

Established as a result of groundbreaking research projects on HIV-AIDS funded by the National Research Council of the Philippines in 2017 and on the development of a Stigma Reduction Questionnaire funded by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, the CSRR is most suited to engage in the following areas:

Creative production in response to the seven priority research areas (environment, migration, inclusion, holistic health, literacy, older adults, and corporate social responsibility), particularly in reducing stigma related to all or any of them. This will be best led by the Communication and Visual Design and Communication Programs.
Research instrument development, particularly towards a more inclusive education and less stigmatizing communities. The champion for this is the Psychology Program.
Focus on the delivery of courses and dissemination of research outputs, particularly informed by research approaches where its faculty are considered experts, namely, narrative analysis, ethnography, design thinking, polling, and testing.

College of Education and Liberal Art’s Center for OBE and Whole Child Approach (COWCA)

Established in response to the 21st century teaching-learning challenges facing the country and the St. Paul University System particularly outcomes-based education and making sure that the educational landscape focuses on the five whole child tenets (ASCD) – healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. As such, it is positioned to engage in the following areas:

Understanding, Implementing and Evaluating OBE particularly evidenced-based practices which have worked in the local content and may be used as blueprint in other schools and provinces.
Educating the Whole Child: Keeping the Students at the Center of Education that will allow for equitable and inclusive education.

College of Business and Management’s Center for Enterprise Development towards Community Empowerment (CEDCE)

Established in response to the emergence of entrepreneurship as a way to facilitate community development, and the push of the national government to use research outputs to develop products and services. Informed by the different advocacies of the university, research towards the development of enterprises is considered a significant way to develop new ideas for community extension programs in the university. Given this, the CEDCE is most suited to conduct research in the following areas:

Product and service development especially advancing the different advocacies of the university and the previously identified research agenda (environment, migration, inclusion, holistic health, literacy, older adults, and corporate social responsibility).
Development of new business models, particularly those that respond to the new challenges presented by the pandemic and the growing trend towards online transactions.
Exploring the application of the circular economy, especially as more and more people are becoming more ethical in their choices and seeking options that reflect their ethical convictions and counter-cultural attitudes.
Creative use of digital technology to address the different challenges that communities face in the time of climate change and pandemics.
Establishing the Intellectual Property Office that will make applications for patents easier for the university’s faculty, staff, and students.
Solutions Farm and Technologies (SOFT) development to accelerate the development of prototypes of solutions ideated across the different colleges of the university.
Sharing of established and emergent knowledge on market and business management research allowing for new ways of integrating them in disciplines beyond business and management.

College of Music and the Performing Arts’ Center for Performance, Music Education, and Creative Therapies (PMECT)

Resulting from the establishment of the music therapy program in the university in 2013, it seeks to establish itself as the hub of local knowledge about music therapy and other creative therapies that can take root in other colleges and programs. Being a trailblazer, it seeks to establish the guideposts for research in the crossroads of positivistic, humanistic, and interpretive paradigms which is rare since the country is still grappling with the notion of interdisciplinary research which is music therapy’s strength as a discipline. It also seeks to be an important contributor to the body of knowledge on music education, performance practice, as well as the creation and performance of new musical works. As such, it is positioned to do engage in the following areas:

Exploring collaborative research with organizations and institutions involved in music education, creation, performance, and therapy.
Championing music-related interdisciplinary research in the university and in the St. Paul University System.
Defining the unique trajectory of music therapy research in the country vis-a-vis existing trajectories abroad.
Intensifying music therapy research so that it can come up with different research templates that can be applied not just to music therapy but also in other interdisciplinary fields of study.
Regularly organizing music therapy conferences to promote research conducted in the field of music therapy and discourse about them.
Understanding, Implementing and Evaluating Outcomes-Based music education practice in the local context to come up with models which may be adapted by other schools and/or other disciplines.
Developing and inculturation of the ideals of inclusive education in the context of the music classroom.
Creating new musical works and/or presenting performances inspired by Paulinian experiences and ideals.

College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences’ Center for Nursing Education Research (CNER)

Having shaped the leadership in nursing schools and health institutions in the country through its highly competent graduates, the CNER leverages its research on the strength of the College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences as a top performing nursing school. As such, the said college considers nursing education not just a quality service it has provided through the years but also a degree program at its highest academic level. Given that, the CNER is deemed fit to lead the way in the following areas:

Advancing research ensuring quality nursing education especially as expressed or applied in the previously identified research areas (environment, migration, inclusion, holistic health, literacy, older adults, and corporate social responsibility).
Culture of care that is likely to be ignored or sacrificed as technologies in health service delivery take the spotlight in the age of digital technology and pandemic scenarios looming in the future.
Pastoral Care the most tangible form of care for end-of-life cases and patients with life- threatening co-morbidities.
Community nursing to help improve the state of health in communities and nurture a major ministry of the SPC sisters since the establishment of their congregation.
Service learning to advance the cause of learning to serve while in the academic setting which mirrors a congregation committed to the service of the community.
Research education in nursing and health sciences, particularly focusing on research approaches where its faculty researchers excel, particularly in phenomenology, grounded theory, narrative inquiry, case study, and techniques like Delphi Method and book development. The university deems it important for the college to be considered a champion of qualitative research in a highly positivist discipline and to highlight the human dimension of the science of nursing.

Expression of Commitment

As a community, we, the top academic administrators, together with the coordination of the Center for Research, Innovation, and Development, commit ourselves to advancing the above research agenda, making sure that they are pursued and looked after by our esteemed faculty researchers from the inception of the research projects to the dissemination, and application of their findings. We are committed to the pursuit of excellence, collaboration, and service in the context of research and convinced that only by actively and deliberately engaging in the above areas of research can we truly achieve the goals of Paulinian formation in the here and now. Hence, we shall act to ascertain that research in the university, particularly in the identified priority areas, is actively pursued by learners at all levels and conducted ethically and with utmost quality by our research faculty.

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Admission ongoing for S.Y. 2025-2026

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