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The School of Post-Graduate Studies was formally organized and approved by the Office of Private Education, Department of Public Instruction, on April 7, 1938, with the offering of a post-graduate course leading to the degree of Master of Science in Chemistry. The University consistently increased the emphasis on graduate work so that it might be a strong center for advanced study. Graduate study was supervised by the Graduate Council headed by the President of the School (later the University), George Lucas Adamson and the following as members: Oscar Falek, PhD (Berlin); Rollin G. Myers, PhD (Stanford); Gustave Hailner, PhD (Budapest); Mariano Buenafe, MS Math (Washington); William Gilfoil, M.S.Ch.(Lousiana); George Athos Adamson, B.S. Ch. (Athens); and Felipe P. Logan, M.S.Ph. (Oregon). Under the Graduate School was the Institute of Industrial Research which became operational effective School Year 1938. The Research Institute was designed to promote Philippine Industries by conducting research projects on the utilization of raw materials into articles and commodities of local demand and consumption.  Existing industries found valuable assistance from the Institute through its researches on manufacturing efficiency, as its findings pointed out how current manufacturing processes might be improved and profits increased correspondingly. The Institute also looked into the utilization of waste products so that these might yield profits instead of swelling overhead costs. It also gave a powerful impetus to the development of new industries, with its laboratory furnishing them with important facts regarding cost and yield of their products of manufacture. The findings of the Institute were published regularly in “The Industries”.

The Research Institute was also established to provide the necessary facilities for the School’s Department of Post-Graduate Studies in connection with various researches and studies for the degree of Master of Science in Chemistry, including researches and studies in biochemistry, advanced physical chemistry, advanced inorganic chemistry, advanced organic preparations.

Two experts were invited to Manila to take charge of the Research Institute – they were Dr. V. Vlassohoulous and Mr. Nicholas Sacknikas, both of Athens, Greece. President George Lucas Adamson, while on an extended trip abroad, contacted their services for the Institute. Dr. Vlassohoulous was designated head of the Institute. He obtained his degree in B.S. Chemistry at the Halle Saale. He was conferred the degree of Doctor of Chemistry at the University of Saale in recognition of his excellent work. For many years, he was professor of Chemistry at the University of Athens, and the time of his appointment to the Research Institute, he was the technical director of the EKAP, manufacturers of war gas masks in Athens. Mr. Nicholas Sacknikas, who was designated assistant to Dr. Vlassohoulous, obtained his education from the University of Leipzig, Germany, where he got his B.S. degree in Chemistry.

By 1941, the Adamson Research Institute, now renamed the Adamson Institute of Industrial Research, maintained a research staff engaged in industrial research and new product process development as determined by the requirements of its clients, such as special problems in finishes, plastics, rubber, asphalt, petroleum,  oils, foods, flavors, odors, soaps, leather, ceramics and glass, pulp and paper, inks, dyes, textiles, dairy products, metallurgy, and miscellaneous industrial problems in the field of chemical and physical research, industrial surveys and appraisals, general commercial analytical and testing work, and technical assistance in patent matters, including cooperation with attorneys on patent structures and litigation.

There was only one (1) graduate in the Master of Science in Chemistry program in 1941 when World War II broke out.

One very significant consequence of the War was the acceptance by Adamson University of several Jewish professors, refugees from Germany. The guarantee of a position to teach at Adamson gave them the right to visas to the Philippines so that they could leave Nazi Germany and escape the concentration.