As a key provider of quality education, UP Diliman (UPD) is “intrinsically linked to the imperative to pursue sustainable development.”
This was the assertion made by Director Aura C. Matias of the UPD Quality Assurance Officer (QAO) during the UPD SDG Symposium 2025. The event gathered university unit heads to discuss UPD’s progress towards achieving the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to chart the directions it needs to take.
Earlier in 2024, UP CIFAL Philippines and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs conducted an orientation-workshop on implementing the 17 SDGs in UP’s teaching, research, and extension functions.
Matias said UP plays a pivotal and influential role in driving various research and innovation agenda in the country. The University does this by establishing connections with various sectors as it produces research and nurtures generations of future leaders through its teaching.
“By committing to the accomplishment of the SDGs, UP aligns itself with broader national development goals and musters its rich intellectual and human resources to position the country as an actor in the global stage that is future oriented and has a sustainability mindset,” Matias said.
Evangeline C. Amor, PhD, faculty-in-charge of the UPD Performance Monitoring Team, noted that the symposium also hopes to reach unit heads who already “have a notion of the intersection of education and sustainability and what rankings represent, but feel that there must be more concrete mechanisms that will make the SDGs work as a blueprint for UP’s future.”
Matias added that she hopes the participants will leave the symposium “with the intention of forming a technical working group at the constituent university level to promote the SDGs where UPD can most actively contribute. I hope that those insights take root at the unit level and become part of how we relate to the tasks that we must do for our colleagues and the vision and mission of the University.”
Apart from Matias, speakers at the symposium were UP CIFAL Philippines Director Michelle R. Palumbarit and UPLB Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension Nathaniel C. Bantayan. The lectures were followed by an open forum moderated by Christian Orozco, an assistant professor at the UPD College of Engineering.
The symposium, held on April 21 at the Bulwagang Tandang Sora of the UPD College of Social Community Work and Development, covered topics such as the role of UP-CIFAL Philippines in contributing to the SDGs and UP’s own SDG initiatives; UP Los Baños’ (UPLB) campus-wide Accelerating Growth through One Research and Extension in Action (AGORA) program, which aligns with seven of the SDGs; and the UPD’s current SDG accomplishments, its strengths, and the future direction of its SDG agenda.