University Design Institute announces Dr. Reynaldo Vea as Global Fellow in the Philippines

The University Design Institute (UDI) is excited to announce that Dr. Reynaldo Vea has been named as a Global Fellow. Global Fellows are world-renowned experts and leaders in higher education and support UDI higher education transformation work in various regions and industries.

Dr. Vea is a well-respected and long-time leader in higher education in the Philippines. He started his academic career as Department Chair of the College of Engineering at the University of the Philippines and later served as Dean. Influenced by his love of lifelong learning and serving the needs of Filipino students, he advanced to the President and CEO of Mapua University, a highly respected, private, research-oriented university in Manila. Dr. Vea ended his 23-year tenure as the president of Mapúa University in June 2023, after leading significant advancements in its engineering and technological education. He shifted focus to iPeople Inc., concentrating on strategic leadership within the broader educational network part of the Yuchengco Group-Ayala partnership, including seven universities and two primary or secondary schools in the Philippines as its subsidiaries, including Mapúa University.  

Dr. Vea looks to contribute to UDI’s work on USAID's U.S.-Philippines Partnership for Skills, Innovation, and Lifelong Learning (UPSKILL) Program. Funded by the United States Agency for International Development/Philippines (USAID/Philippines), the UPSKILL program is led by RTI International to help strengthen Philippine higher education by boosting innovation, workforce development, and entrepreneurship in colleges and universities.

“We are delighted to have Dr. Vea join the University Design Institute as a Global Fellow,” said Minu Ipe, UDI Vice Chair and Managing Director. 

Dr. Vea shared his story with UDI about what he hopes to accomplish as a Global Fellow. The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering and how have your experiences shaped your approach to leadership?

A: Growing up, I had always been intrigued by how things are made. I used to make Piper Cub models and small soapbox cars using cardboard sticks and glue. My studying in the Philippine Science High School strengthened my inclination toward making things and got me hooked on mathematics and science. Eventually, I chose to be a naval architect and marine engineer, a qualification suited to the archipelagic nature of the Philippines. I got the chance to do design and fieldwork in a shipyard and a ship design firm. 

I didn't really have people to supervise until I became department chairman and later dean of the College of Engineering of the University of the Philippines. Without much formal management training, I winged it based on life and work experiences, an engineer’s design thinking, and on people skills. So the approach to leadership that naturally evolved in my case was to define the mission elements; craft a vision; make a plan, carefully and innovatively design its elements; trust and empower people to execute the plan, and continuously tweak and improve the plan.

I have carried this approach as president of Mapua University and as CEO of iPeople. In Mapua, we aimed to create a “Digital, Research-focused, Outcomes-based, International Domain (DROID)” on the way to joining the ranks of the best universities in the world, which we did in 2023 when we broke into the THE World University Rankings. At iPeople we vowed last year to “Build the Future” on the way to becoming the best-performing school system in the country.

Q: Looking back on your journey from MIT and UC Berkeley to leading institutions in the Philippines, what key lessons have you learned?

A: At MIT and UC Berkeley, I absorbed the belief that a school should take on the world’s big challenges. With the education I had from these two schools on top of the education I had had from the University of the Philippines, I gained the confidence as well to take on such challenges even in the face of the resource-challenged circumstances of a Philippine university. Thus, among other things, Mapua has contributed towards the attainment of a number of the UN SDGs, resulting in a ranking under the THE Impact Rankings.

As a leader of Philippine higher education institutions, I have learned how the enunciation of a vision anchored on an actionable future can unify and galvanize a university. I have learned how important having a worldview is. My view that knowledge is exploding and the world is shrinking informed everything I did. It led to the mantra that Mapua should be “a digital and global university for people and planet.” It kept me and Mapua steady as we surged forward.

Q: What role do you believe interdisciplinary education, encompassing both STEM and the humanities, will play in shaping future leaders and innovators in the Philippines?

A: Philippine universities have, in the front end of the curricula of all degree programs, a general education component rich in the studies of the humanities and sciences. The inclusion of this GE program has certainly helped engineers and scientists face today’s problems with solutions that factor in social, ethical, and environmental concerns. It has certainly also helped humanities and social sciences scholars use online tools and resources to do research. 

For those who go on to become leaders and innovators, such a holistic education has given them a broad view to better inform decisions and spark new ideas. It may even have helped them find opportunities in the intersection of culture and technology as Steve Jobs, with his iPod, did. How good can a leader in science be if he does not understand the human condition? How good could a leader in the field of humanities be if he did not appreciate the technologies that are dramatically changing society?

Q: How do you see the relationship between higher education and the private sector evolving to better support innovation and entrepreneurship in the country?

A: Universities will be evolving to add innovation and entrepreneurship among their main functions. Whereas traditionally universities are focused on the triad of instruction, basic research, and extension, they will be concerning themselves more and more with applied research, development, and innovation. 

The private sector will be evolving to take greater notice of what is happening in the laboratories of the higher education sector. They will more and more use the universities’ intellectual properties for their businesses. They will progressively participate early on in the incubation of innovations. Individual-university-to-individual-company partnerships will evolve into more sophisticated linkages and ecosystems involving multilateral and sectoral arrangements. The coming together of intellectual and material resources from universities and companies to bear on innovation challenges in academic labs will lead to more new products, and hopefully, a virtuous cycle will be generated.

Q: What excites you most about the UPSKILL initiative, and what impact do you hope it will have on higher education in the Philippines?

A: I am most excited about the prospect of higher education leaders being stimulated into designing or redesigning their universities, or parts of it, for greater impact on society and the economy. I’m also excited about the chance for universities to explore and choose what they could be and design the innovative ways by which they can get to this future.

In being able to do these, I hope that higher education in the Philippines will be able to increase enrolment, improve quality, better ensure student success, facilitate school-to-work transition, define a proper place for micro-credentials, contribute to lifelong learning, and produce innovations and entrepreneurial yield for social and economic gain.

Q: How do you envision the UPSKILL program transforming the landscape of entrepreneurship and innovation in the country's educational institutions?

A: I envision UPSKILL supporting the design, development, and delivery of micro-credentials and courses on innovation and entrepreneurship that will be offered for free to students and alumni of all Philippine higher education institutions. It will also stimulate and organize the coming together of academics and private sector representatives in associations whose main job it will be to draw up strategic and tactical plans for research, development, and innovation. It will be associations designed, among others, to have the capability to identify pre-competitive technologies, the development of which its members can agree to collaborate on. Finally, UPSKILL will contribute to the development of master’s and PhD science and engineering programs as the academic backbone of research, development, and innovation. More particularly, given the project duration, I envision a study that will identify a small number of universities that will be named as research universities to which government resources can be concentrated.