The Central Luzon Health Research and Development Consortium (CLHRDC), composed of 25 member institutions from government agencies, DOH-retained hospitals and higher education institutions in Region III, takes the lead role in implementing health research and development activities in the region. The following activities were accomplished by the Consortium Secretariat through its four working committees, namely: Research Management (RMC), Capacity Building (CBC), Research Utilization, Information and Communication (RUICC) and Ethics Review (ERC) for the period covering January to December 2018.
1. For this year, RMC was able to receive 19 research proposals, and 4 proposals were approved for funding by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD-DOST).
Project monitoring was also conducted by the committee on 4 on-going projects, wherein 2 are funded by PCHRD and the other 2 funded by the Central Luzon Center for Health Development (CLCHD).
2. The Philippine Health Research Ethics Board (PHREB) awarded accreditations to the following ethics review committees (ERCs) in the region this year:
1) Bataan Peninsula State University - Peninsulares Research Ethics Committee – Level 1
2) Tarlac State University-Research Ethics Committee – Level 1 (renewed)
3) Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology – University Research Ethics Committee – Level 1
4) Holy Angel University-Institutional Review Board – Level 1
ERC was also able to review 7 research proposals. The committee continues to assist ERCs of member institutions in applying for accreditation thru documentary requirements and provision of trainings, thus promoting the conduct of researches that are ethically-sound and compliant with local and international standards.
3. On capacity building, CBC conducted the following trainings and workshops:
1-2) Health Research Proposal Writeshop, Mentoring and Evaluation Phase 1 and 2
3) SOP Writeshop for IERCs
4) Orientation to Tuklas Lunas Development Center and Mentoring on Research Proposal Writing
5) Seminar Workshop on Patent Drafting.
The committee was able to train 26 new researchers who were able to generate 14 concept papers, 30 trained on SOP writing for ERCs, 31 on TLDC orientation who were able to come up with a program study, and 28 researchers on patent drafting.
4. Aside from information dissemination activities thru multimedia, RUICC has conducted the Central Luzon Health Research Forum in collaboration with the CLCHD last April 25-26 at Royce Hotel, Clark, Pampanga.
The forum coincided with the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the consortium. Completed researches from higher education institutions, local government units, public and private hospitals were presented in the competing and non-competing divisions. Winners of the forum were sent as the regional entries to the Philippine National Health Research System (PNHRS) Week.
5. Participation to the PNHRS Week is part of the consortium operations, this year’s celebration was held last August 6-9 at Baguio City. Faye Marion Sebastian of NEUST won 2nd place in the Oral Research Presentation Contest – Student Category for her study entitled: Modified Starch from Rice Bran as Adsorbent of Heavy Metals in Aqueous Solution. Aside from this, a strategic planning workshop was held last November 6-7, to come up with the consortium’s 5-year strategic plan (2018-2022).
CLHRDC continues to work aggressively towards attaining the vision of a healthy Central Luzon population that benefits from research-based solutions and innovations.
