A week ago Filipino and American officials, led by Science Secretary Mario G. Montejo and US Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg, convened the first Joint Philippine-US Science and Technology Committee meeting.
Four working groups of scientists and technologists from both countries presented action plans for collaborative projects on climate change and disaster resilience; health research; marine biodiversity and conservation; and the Philippines’s science-and-technology capacity-building.
This pioneering effort coincides with the United States Agency for International Development’s Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for Development Program aimed at sustaining the Philippines’s economic growth by jump-starting its “science innovation ecosystem.” Under the program, $32 million (P1.3 billion) was available to the Philippines over the next five years for scholarships, US study tours, industry-academe research and technology transfer.
In June the British government announced a similar developmental initiative called the “Newton Fund,” which is a P27.5-billion (€375 million) foreign-aid fund of which P733.5 million (€10 million) will be devoted to the Philippines for bilateral and multilateral projects on research and innovation for economic development.
For the Newton Fund’s first year (of five), Philippine universities and research institutions, public and private, can seek financial support (P2 million to P10 million per grant) for establishing new or refreshing existing partnerships with their UK counterparts. Grants will be awarded for projects on health and life sciences; environmental resilience and energy security; future cities; agritech; and digital innovation and creativity.
Also in June, the Department of Science and Technology concluded an agreement with the Japanese government for information and communications technology (ICT) development. A memorandum of understanding was signed with the Ministry for Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) for technical assistance during the Philippines’s transition to the Japanese standard for digital TV broadcasting technologies.
The DOST and the MIC, moreover, agreed to cooperate toward developing ICT for disaster risk-reduction and enhancing cybersecurity programs for e-commerce and e-government.
This partnering with the three top scientific nations of the world is a good start for a laggard in innovation and creativity. This collaboration may very well lay the foundation for the country to leapfrog its development, in spite of the lack of direction and foresight from our political leaders.
Government needs to be “a proactive conductor” and orchestrate the actions of our innovation ecosystem, as I said in my column a few weeks back (October 21).
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