The National Academy of Science and Technology Philippines (NAST PHL), in collaboration with the DOST Luzon Cluster, is accepting paper submissions for the 2026 Luzon Regional Scientific Meeting (RSM), scheduled for April 7 to 8, 2026 in Metro Manila. The exact venue has yet to be announced. This year's theme is "UN SDGs: Science, Technology, and Innovation for Sustainable Development," and the meeting includes a dedicated Scientific Posters Session open to researchers across the Luzon cluster — including all provinces and universities in Northern Luzon.

The submission deadline was February 27, 2026, with qualified applicants to be notified on or before March 20. If you missed this cycle, the RSM runs annually — and knowing the format and requirements now puts Northern Luzon researchers in a stronger position for the next call.

Who Can Submit and What Qualifies

The call is open to student researchers, faculty, and innovators whose work meets three conditions: the paper must be original and not previously presented in any other forum, event, or competition; it must be based on at least undergraduate thesis research — not high school science projects or class laboratory experiments; and it must not be based on preliminary data.

That last requirement is worth emphasizing for student applicants. The RSM is a peer-reviewed national scientific platform, not a science fair. Submissions need to reflect completed or substantially progressed research with real findings. For students across Northern Luzon working on agriculture, environmental science, aquaculture, food technology, engineering, health, or indigenous knowledge systems, this is a realistic and meaningful target — provided the work is at the right stage.

Why This Matters for Northern Luzon Researchers

Northern Luzon's universities produce a significant volume of research every year. BSU, PSU, MMSU, DMMMSU, Kalinga State University, UC, SLU, and dozens of other state universities and private HEIs across CAR, Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, and Region I graduate thousands of thesis students annually. A large portion of that research never travels beyond the institution where it was produced.

The RSM is one of the few national scientific platforms that explicitly opens its doors to undergraduate-level research from regional universities. A poster presentation at the Luzon RSM signals to graduate programs, employers, and funding bodies that the researcher's work has been through a national selection process under the Philippines' highest scientific body. For Northern Luzon's research community — which regularly produces strong work in highland agriculture, aquaculture, salt technology, biodiversity, and food science — the Luzon RSM is an underutilized opportunity that more institutions in the region should be actively targeting.

The honest note: the February 27 submission deadline for this cycle has passed. But qualified applicants will be notified by March 20, meaning the selection process is still ongoing and the April event is upcoming. For researchers who didn't make this cycle, the time to prepare for the next RSM call is now — before the thesis defense season, not after.

Faculty advisers and research coordinators at Northern Luzon universities should be building the RSM into their thesis timelines as a standard completion milestone. Students can bookmark the submission portal at tinyurl.com/2026LRSMAF and the guidelines at tinyurl.com/2026LRSMGDL for the next call.

Source: 2026 LRSM Guidelines