SEVEN universities will collaborate on a project that aims to preserve and promote Filipino Indigenous Knowledge.

These schools — the Central Luzon State University, Mariano Marcos State University, Benguet State University, Central Mindanao University, Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University, Mountain Province State Polytechnic College, University of Southeaster Philippines, and the University of Saskatchewan — will work on the initiative whose P38 million funding will come from the Commission on Higher Education.

Dubbed as “Intensifying the Filipino Culture towards Sustained Indigenous People’s Knowledge System in Saving Natural Habitat, Landscape, and Practices through Cultural Education and Community Development,” the project aims to drive the internationalization of Indigenous Knowledge system and practices in agriculture, environment, and natural resources, art, knowledge.

“The components of this program include capacity buildings on IK systems and professional exchange, R&D activities to address indigenous knowledge system and cultural management issues and concerns, and KM through the development of instructional materials and publications,” CLSU said on Facebook.

Dr. Angeles de Leon of the CLSU will be the project head. She aims to lead the documentation of IK on mushrooms and plants utilized by IPs who lived in the mountains of Central Luzon.