Ink before insignia: Why proven scholarship must precede academic power
In an era where academic leadership is increasingly entangled with institutional politics, visibility and administrative maneuvering, a fundamental question must be asked: What qualifies one to lead a university? The answer should be neither convenience nor charisma, but demonstrable scholarly credibility.
Leadership in state universities and colleges (SUCs) must be anchored in proven academic contribution—ink before insignia. Without this foundation, leadership risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.
Recent leadership selections in Philippine higher education bring this tension into sharp relief, exposing an enduring disconnect between scholarly credibility and administrative prominence. When leadership is detached from scholarship, institutions risk becoming spaces where the blind lead the blind—where those who have not meaningfully contributed to knowledge production are tasked to steer its direction.
The proposition that aspiring academic leaders should meet a minimum benchmark—such as a Scopus-indexed h-index of at least 5—may appear reductionist at first glance. Leadership cannot be reduced to numbers, but neither can it be divorced from evidence.
Metrics, when used responsibly, function as safeguards against arbitrariness. They establish a baseline of scholarly participation: evidence that one has contributed to and been recognized by the academic community.
At the international level, university leaders often possess significantly higher citation impact, frequently reaching double-digit h-indices, reflecting sustained engagement in globally visible scholarship. If SUCs aspire to global competitiveness—as articulated in their mission and vision statements—then leadership qualifications must reflect this ambition. Otherwise, the aspiration remains rhetorical.
This is not an argument for metric absolutism. Disciplines vary, publication cultures differ and career trajectories are uneven. However, the absence of any meaningful scholarly benchmark opens the door to leadership appointments that lack epistemic grounding.
Creative works, professional expertise and administrative experience are important dimensions of academic life, but they cannot substitute for engagement in knowledge production, particularly in institutions where research is explicitly mandated. To conflate these domains is to weaken the very foundation of a university as a knowledge-producing institution.
In the Philippine SUC context, this issue is particularly urgent. SUCs operate under a performance framework structured around four Key Result Areas (KRAs): Instruction, Research, Extension, and Production.
While research and creative work are often jointly weighted at a significant proportion of institutional evaluation, this does not imply interchangeability. Research, as a systematic and peer-validated process of knowledge generation, plays a distinct role in informing evidence-based teaching, grounding extension initiatives, and driving innovation within production.
To argue that research is optional in leadership on the basis of creative equivalence is to misunderstand its integrative function. Appointing leaders with weak research credentials sends a contradictory signal: that research is institutionally prioritized, but not leadership-essential.
A leader with a credible research track record brings more than publications to the table. They bring epistemic authority. They understand the rigors of peer review, the discipline of sustained inquiry and the politics of academic publishing. They are better positioned to mentor faculty, design enabling research ecosystems and secure external funding.
In contrast, leaders without this grounding often default to compliance-driven approaches, reducing research to reporting requirements rather than cultivating a culture of inquiry. In such environments, the appearance of productivity replaces its substance.
At the same time, academic leadership must be understood as multidimensional. Instruction remains central to the university’s public mandate, requiring leaders who understand curriculum coherence and student learning outcomes.
Extension ensures that knowledge serves the public good, particularly in a context marked by inequality. Production speaks to sustainability and institutional resilience. However, it is precisely because leadership spans these domains that research becomes non-negotiable. It is the connective tissue that binds them. Without it, leadership risks fragmentation—administratively efficient, but intellectually directionless.
Beyond competence lies the question of moral authority. Academic leadership is not merely technical; it is ethical. Public office, as enshrined in Civil Service principles, is a public trust.
Leaders are accountable not only for institutional performance but for upholding standards of integrity, transparency and fairness. In this context, merit cannot be reduced to seniority, visibility, or networks of affiliation.
Merit must be understood as demonstrable excellence, reflected in sustained scholarly output, peer recognition and measurable contribution to the field. Existing performance frameworks such as IPCR and OPCR already emphasize outstanding rather than merely satisfactory performance. Leadership selection must align with these standards, not circumvent them.
When leadership is divorced from scholarly achievement, the consequences are institutional. Faculty become demoralized when expectations are imposed by those who have not met them. Research cultures weaken, as compliance replaces curiosity.
Over time, mediocrity gains legitimacy and excellence becomes optional. Titles precede substance and authority becomes performative rather than earned. In such conditions, universities risk losing their core identity as sites of knowledge production.
This is not to suggest that an h-index threshold guarantees effective leadership. Nor does its absence automatically disqualify individuals with exceptional administrative capability.
However, in systems where patronage and seniority often overshadow merit, minimum scholarly benchmarks serve as necessary correctives. They are imperfect, but they are preferable to arbitrariness. They ensure that leadership remains anchored, at the very least, in credible engagement with the academic enterprise.
Ultimately, the call is not for technocratic leadership, but for credible leadership—one that aligns authority with achievement. Ink must precede insignia because scholarship is not an accessory to leadership; it is its foundation. Structural reforms must follow.
Search committees and governing boards must institutionalize transparent, evidence-based criteria that explicitly include scholarly track record, citation impact relative to field norms and demonstrated capacity to lead research ecosystems. These should not be treated as optional attributes or symbolic credentials, but as core qualifications.
In redefining academic leadership, institutions must resist the temptation to prioritize visibility over substance. Honorary titles, symbolic distinctions and administrative prominence cannot substitute for intellectual rigor.
The future of SUCs depends not on who occupies positions of power, but on whether those individuals embody the credibility, integrity and competence that such positions demand. Leadership, in its truest sense, is not about ascending to authority—it is about being worthy of it. Otherwise, what we have are not leaders, but placeholders in positions that demand far more.
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Arlyne “Madam Ate” C Marasigan ([email protected]) is a professor at the College of Advanced Studies and a fellow at the Educational Policy Research and Development Office (EPRDO). Nikolee Marie A Serafico-Reyes ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences and a fellow at EPRDO. Jayson L de Vera ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the Faculty of Science, Technology, and Mathematics. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Philippine Normal University.
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