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Funds for Undergraduate Thesis Grant in Natural Products is now being provided by the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (DOST-PCHRD) to support to all undergraduate students who will conduct their thesis on natural products. This program aims to sustain a research culture in natural products to increase the number of research and later on build a pool of researchers/experts specializing in the field. The said program also supports the Drug Discovery and Development program of the DOST-PCHRD which aims to develop safe, effective and affordable alternative drugs from the country’s natural resources.

In order to qualify for the said project, the applicants must comply with the following requirements and procedures:

NOMINATION PROCEDURES

Who can apply

All undergraduate students of Pharmacy, Chemistry, Nursing and Health and Allied Sciences who have thesis proposals on natural products may apply. The proposed thesis study must use plants indigenous in the region. The project must be completed a year after receiving the grant.

1.How to apply

Applicants should submit the following documents to the Regional Health Research and Development Consortium (RHRDC):

a) Duly accomplished prescribed research proposal form with college seal

b) Endorsement letter from the institution signed by the head of the university college dean

c) Soft copy of the proposal (word format) d) Hard copy of the proposal using A4 paper (3 copies)

e) Certificate of plant authentication

f) Appropriate clearances: Bureau of Animal Industry clearance for studies involving animal subjects Biosafety Clearance for studies involving genetic engineering and pathogenic organisms National Commission on Indigenous Peoples Clearance for studies involving Indigenous Peoples Gratuitous Permit from Biodiversity Management Bureau for studies involving the collection of flora and fauna from DENR Protected Areas Ethical clearance for studies involving human subjects

g) Curriculum vitae of the students and adviser using the prescribed form

In addition, the research proposals will be rated based on the following criteria:

Proposal evaluation

1. Technical merit

Objectives are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound
The study design supports the objectives
The study sample and methodology are appropriate

2.Data management

The plan for data collection is clearly described
Quality control procedures for data collection are in place
Statistical analysis is well described

3.Relevance/Significance

The study addresses an important health problem
The study contributes to the advancement of scientific knowledge

4.Proponent/institution’s capacity

The investigators are qualified and appropriately trained to carry out the study
The proposed study is appropriate to the experience level of the investigators
The implementing/cooperating institution is capable of carrying out the proposed study

Thesis grants will be given to 2 undergraduate entries per region. After completion of the project, a competition will be held to selected qualified students to recognize innovative work on natural products.

Deliberation of thesis grantees and winners will be based on the grading/rating during the en banc meeting and oral presentation, respectively.

Members of screening committee include the Regional Health Research and Development Consortium – for prescreening, UP Institute of Chemistry, UST Research Center for the Natural Sciences, DLSHSI Center for Biopharmaceutical Research, Gruppo Medica Inc. and Herbanext Laboratories Inc.

Two (2) thesis proposals will be selected per region who will receive a grant amounting to a maximum of Fifty Thousand Pesos (P 50,000.00). The thesis fund will be deposited to the bank account of the thesis adviser and will be liquidated after the completion of the study. A Memorandum of Agreement will be signed by the students, adviser, head of the institution and DOST-PCHRD and the grant must be expended based on the approved line-item budget

After the oral presentation, fund support will be provided to the top 3 relevant and innovative thesis studies. Aside from plaque of recognition, prizes will be distributed to the finalists as follows:

The dissemination and application of entries have already started earlier January until March while the deadline of submission to the consortium and DOST-PCHRD were scheduled on the end of May and 2nd week of June, respectively. On the other hand, the selection of thesis grantees by the Selection Committee will start on June to July and the conduct of study on August to May of the succeeding year. Meanwhile, on the first week of June of the succeeding year, completed studies shall be submitted to DOST-PCHRD where the Selection Committee shall select the oral presenters until July. Finally, the oral presentation and announcement of winners will be conducted on August 2019.

Department of Science and Technology (DOST)

The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) is the premier science and technology body in the country charged with the twin mandate of providing central direction, leadership, and coordination of all scientific and technological activities, and of formulating policies, programs and projects to support national development.

Reviving and industrializing agriculture: An opportunity for DTI, DA and DOST to work together

By: Rene E. Ofreneo

May 16, 2018

Increased participation in the global value chains (GVCs) of multinationals is one of the development thrusts being pursued by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). As we argued in previous columns, there is a danger that the country might get trapped in low value-adding activities associated with the GVCs if the government industrial strategy is simply focused on rolling the red carpet to GVC investors. China has demonstrated that a country participating in the GVCs need not adopt a passive policy of simply embracing these GVC investors through a policy of investment and trade liberalization. A developing country can pursue an active and forward-looking program of industrial modernization and diversification by pressing GVC investors to focus on higher rungs of the technology and skills ladder, promoting its own home-grown GVCs, nurturing domestic industries side by side with the export industries, and developing a comprehensive and continuous program of R&D and technology development for Philippine industry. This, in brief, is what Industrial Policy, with capital “I” and “P”, means.

In this connection, one economic sector where Industrial Policy can be fully applied in is agriculture. Once a relatively vibrant sector in the 1950s-1970s, agriculture has continuously stagnated, from the 1980s to the present. Agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of the GDP today, although the sector still employs over 30 percent of the labor force. Poverty, inequality and backwardness are widespread in the countryside. These explain why rural insurgency, the longest running in Asia, has persisted.

And yet, our agricultural decline can be reversed. According to agronomists from UP Los Banos, the solutions are two-fold: first, strengthen and upgrade the value chains for various agricultural products, and second, industrialize the sector by modernizing the sector and encouraging the development of agri-based industries.

On value chains, Dr. Ted Mendoza, a Trustee of the Philippine Rice Institute, wonders why the 19^th-century “supply chain” focus in agricultural production has remained predominant in 21^stcentury Philippines. In supply chain orientation, the farmer producer is asked to concentrate on increasing the output from the land – food and raw materials – based on improvements on land preparation, seed selection and so on. Mendoza argues that this supply chain focus has enchained the farmer producer into a vicious cycle of low income, poverty and eventually, low investment on land productivity and low yields. Hence, to Mendoza, this “supply chain agriculture” should be buried and be replaced with the more progressive “value chain approach”.

In an integrated “value chain approach”, the farmer producer puts under his/her control and ownership the interrelated farm production and marketing processes, starting with the seed production and land preparation and ending with the processing, packaging and trading of the product, either for export or for display in the store shelves. In each link of the integrated value chain, extra value is added and earned. If done consistently and sustainably, the integrated value chain approach becomes a virtuous circle of higher income, higher investment on the upgrading of each phase of the chain and, yes, higher and sustained productivity in overall agricultural production.

The value chain approach is not a new or novel idea. It has been part of the conversation piece among development workers in agriculture, within and outside the government, for a number of decades already. What is needed is a decisive push along this line from the government.

In this context, the task of the Department of Agriculture (DA) is to provide assistance in the promotion, consolidation and sustained upgrading of the integrated value chain approach. The DA should abandon the piecemeal or segmented type of extending technical and other forms of assistance. Agricultural extension service should be integrative and should adhere to the integrated value chain approach. This means the package of assistance should cover all phases of the production and marketing chain, e.g., seed selection and preparation, land plowing, irrigation, credit, processing, market development, etc.

To be able to master and develop the chain, the small farmers need to band together, especially on activities where a group approach makes a lot of financial sense such as farm input procurement, farm-level trading and so on. The integrated value chain approach requires a strong and united farmer association at the community, regional and national levels. Here the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) can play a critical role in information, education and communication.

More importantly, the above integrated value chain framework can be the platform for rural industrialization. Which means the formation of agri-based industries such as the processing and packaging industries and the revival of the old efforts to establish our own Philippine fertilizer industry, Philippine agri-chemical industry, Philippine tractor industry and Philippine agricultural machinery industry. This is where the assistance and services of the DTI and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) are most needed. This is also where industry-agriculture-academe linkages can be developed.

As it is, Philippine agriculture today is in a dismal state, as reflected in the official statistics on rising agricultural imports vis-à-vis agricultural exports, declining production, weak job generation by the sector and grinding rural poverty. There is also a lot of policy confusion, as vividly shown in the intramurals within the executive branch as to who should control or manage the National Food Authority (NFA), who should be given the authority to import rice or not and so on. The overall development framework that should guide and galvanize the country’s agricultural producers is missing. PDP 2017-2022 talks of “value chain access” for the farmers in a very limited way, that is, mainly through road development (infras).

It is high time that the government focuses on reviving a stagnating agricultural sector and transforming it into a modern and productive one. The way forward is to formally pursue the integrated “value chain approach” and use this approach as the platform for rural-based industrialization and small farmer development. In this system, the DA, DTI, DOST and other agencies such as the CDA and Department of Agrarian Reform should be mobilized in support of a unified value chain development in the agricultural sector.