THE UNIVERSITY of Santo Tomas inaugurated on Monday its innovation center named after Dr. Tony Tan Caktiong in its Sta. Rosa Laguna campus.

The center is seen to be the hub of discoveries and inventions.

Caktiong said that the center recognizes the critical role that innovation plays in economic growth, which should be “smart, inclusive, and sustainable.”

“Some of the most important lessons were learned through failures, which I recognized as inevitable but should never deter the Thomasian community from achieving our collective goal of embodying the Thomasian core values,” he said.

Vice Rector Fr. Isaias Tiongco said that consistent with the vision of the UST Sta. Rosa campus, the center will help fulfill the goal of bringing Thomasian education to a greater number of Filipinos.

“The center is ready to meet challenges brought about by changing tides in education,” he said.

“As a higher education institution, UST can’t afford to stay put and be content with the way things are. We have to traverse similar trajectories as our counterparts abroad and even go beyond parameters to make education similar to new models, if not more advanced.”

Vice Rector for Research and Innovation Academician Maribel Nonato said that establishing the innovation center is a concrete step toward the vision of “bringing research back to society.”

“In 2019, we launched the DOST-TomasINNO Center, which is a smaller version of the center we will have here. This is a good first step in making the UST Sta. Rosa UST’s innovation-driven campus, whose outputs, generated by the different sectors of UST, will redound to the benefit of society,” Nonato said during the inauguration ceremony.

The three-storey structure was designed by Casas+ Architects. Its CEO, Carmelo Casas, said that the design paid homage to UST’s timelessness.

“The building, which will use state-of-the-art technology and materials, will be a flexible edifice whose features are adaptable and sustainable,” Casas said.