THE Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) is urging the government to tap the “intellectual capital” of higher education institutions (HEIs) to boost food security and economic recovery by fostering a “knowledge economy (KE)” amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) crisis.

The top 10 countries in 2008 that have high knowledge economic index (KEI) based on a criteria of the World Bank Institute are Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. The Philippines ranked 79.