The 2008 National Research Symposium will be held on October 2 to 3, the Department of Agriculture-Bureau of Agricultural Research has announced.

NRS is an annual competition to promote research and development excellence and give due recognition to outstanding researchers and their work in agriculture and fisheries. It aims to identify and disseminate new technologies and knowledge useful to agriculture and fisheries modernization.

"To encourage participation of researchers in the fields of agriculture and fisheries, we will increase the cash incentives for this year’s winners of the National Research Symposium," said Nicomedes Eleazar, BAR director.

The competition categories are basic research, applied research, development research, and socioeconomics.

Dr. Carmencita Kagaoan, BAR program development division head and NRS lead organizer, said cash incentives for this year have been increased by more than 50 percent.

She said the 2008 best R&D paper will receive P50,000 (from last year’s P20,000) and a trophy. The first and second runners-up will get P30,000 and P20,000, respectively.

Qualifiers also get a cash prize of P7,000. Qualifiers are papers that garner the average point score of 80 percent and above.

"We would like to embolden the spirits of our researchers/ scientists in the field and encourage them not only to conduct more relevant studies that will generate new technologies for the agriculture and fishery sector but more important, for them to join and present these new findings to the public," Eleazar said.