The Department of Science and Technology conducted a two-day onsite assessment of Mariano Marcos State University in Batac City, Ilocos Norte on March 22 and 23, 2026, as part of the Knowledge, Innovation, Science, and Technology Park Program Evaluation in Region 1. The evaluation was led by DOST Undersecretary for Regional Operations Engr. Sancho A. Mabborang, who chairs the KIST Evaluation Committee, and included participation from DOST-CALABARZON Regional Director and KIST Program Lead Emelita P. Bagsit, alongside representatives from the DOST Central Office, regional offices, DOST-PCIEERD, DOST-PCAARRD, DOST-TAPI, and private sector technical experts.

If MMSU is approved, it would become the first KIST Park outside Region IV — and the first in Northern Luzon. That distinction matters significantly for the region's long-term innovation capacity.

What a KIST Park Is and Why It Matters

The KIST Park Program is DOST's flagship initiative for establishing science and technology parks inside state universities — creating dedicated infrastructure for research commercialization, technology transfer, enterprise incubation, and knowledge-based industry development. KIST Parks are designed to bridge the gap between university research and market application: they give enterprises, researchers, and investors a shared physical and institutional home where technology moves from laboratory to livelihood.

The program takes its model from Korea's Daedeok Innopolis and similar science park concepts that have been shown to accelerate regional innovation economies by concentrating research infrastructure, talent, and enterprise support in one location. For a state university that hosts a KIST Park, the designation comes with national-level investment, program support, and visibility that fundamentally changes the institution's role in its regional economy.

What MMSU Showed the Evaluation Committee

MMSU President Dr. Virgilio Julius P. Manzano Jr. led the committee on a tour of the university's existing research facilities and proposed KIST Park site. The facilities presented make a substantive case for readiness. The Science and Technology Park provides the spatial foundation. The Agri-Aqua Technology Business Incubator demonstrates an existing enterprise development function. The Garlic Research Center reflects MMSU's deep alignment with Ilocos Norte's most significant agricultural commodity. The Functional and Nutraceutical Research Center, the National Bioenergy Research and Innovation Center, the Food Processing and Innovation Center, and the Coastal Engineering Research Center collectively represent a research portfolio that spans agriculture, food science, energy, and marine systems — all directly relevant to the economic challenges and opportunities of Northern Luzon. The College of Medicine's Center for Cellular and Molecular Medical Research adds a health science dimension that few state universities in the region can match.

Taken together, the facilities MMSU presented are not aspirational. They are operational — which is precisely what a KIST Park evaluation is designed to verify.

DOST Ilocos Region, under Regional Director Teresita A. Tabaog, actively supported the evaluation alongside key stakeholders including CHED Chairperson and former MMSU President Dr. Shirley C. Agrupis and PCCI Regional Governor Xavier Mercado. The presence of CHED's current chairperson — herself a former president of the university being evaluated — at the assessment is a significant signal of institutional alignment behind MMSU's KIST Park application.

What Usec. Mabborang Said

Undersecretary Mabborang underscored the historic nature of the evaluation directly. MMSU is being considered as a possible first state university in Northern Luzon — and the first outside Region IV — to host a KIST Park, which highlights its strategic role in expanding the KIST initiative beyond its pilot region. He expressed confidence that MMSU has the potential to become a leading innovation hub that will drive regional development and contribute to national progress.

That confidence, stated publicly by the committee chair at the close of the evaluation, is a meaningful signal — though the formal determination still awaits the committee's official findings.

What This Means for Northern Luzon

A KIST Park at MMSU would be the most consequential science and technology infrastructure investment in Northern Luzon in decades. It would create a national-level platform for the region's research institutions to commercialize their outputs, attract enterprise investment, and develop the kind of knowledge economy anchors — research-driven companies, technology transfer pipelines, graduate research employment — that currently exist almost exclusively in Metro Manila and Region IV.

For Ilocos Norte specifically, a KIST Park at MMSU would position the province as a research and innovation destination alongside its existing identity as an agricultural and renewable energy leader. The garlic and onion research, bioenergy development, aquaculture technology, and food processing work already happening at MMSU would gain the institutional infrastructure and national backing to produce commercially scalable outputs rather than remaining as academic research.

The global science park industry is substantial, with over 7,000 science and technology parks operating across more than 100 countries according to the International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation, collectively employing over 3 million people and hosting hundreds of thousands of enterprises. The Philippines has been slower than comparable economies in the region to develop this model at scale — and the KIST Park Program is the country's most structured attempt to close that gap. MMSU's evaluation places Northern Luzon at the front of that effort.

Institutions, enterprises, and researchers in Northern Luzon interested in the KIST Park Program can follow the evaluation's progress through DOST Ilocos Region and MMSU's Office of the University President. The formal committee findings will determine the next steps — but the evaluation itself is already a signal that Northern Luzon's research infrastructure has reached a level that national DOST leadership considers ready for its most ambitious investment program.

Source: DOST Evaluates Readiness of MMSU as a Possible First KIST Park in Northern Luzon By Kristin R. Castillo and Aryan Joy M. Soliman