Organizational Change at a Local Center of Excellence—The Case of San Carlos University and the Office of Population Studies in the Philippines

th , 2011; revised April 15 th , 2011; accepted May 6 th , 2011. The Higher Education System in the Philippines is in a state of transition caused by global pressures at the one hand and local needs on the other hand. The transition is first of all visible in the implementation of quality systems and secondly in the need for sustainable research and education networks and centres of excellence. The transition not only asks for a policy agenda, but is also a matter of organizational change management at a local level. This paper presents an in-dept case-study of a local research and education network between the Office of Population Studies (OPS) and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (SoAn) of the University of San Carlos (USC) in the region of the Central Visayas, Philippines. It shows that once loosely coupled local partners that worked successfully together in the past became de-coupled and non-sustainable. In order to overcome local constraints and to (re)build a stable, local centre of excellence, adequate change management based upon mutual understanding and trust is needed. It is only through this that the ambition to attain global research standards and, at the same time, to stay effectively engaged in addressing development needs of the region can be fully met.