8 universities get P80 M grants from UK

MANILA, Philippines - Eight Philippine universities will receive a total of P80 million worth of research assistance from the United Kingdom, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said.

The universities will each receive grants worth P10 million under the Newton Fund Program, a development assistance program from the UK government that provides technical expertise in research and innovation to socioeconomic programs in partner countries.

The program is implemented in partnership with CHED and the British Council.

Under the program, Philippine universities will partner with their counterparts in the UK to conduct research in engineering and physical science, social science, biological and medical science, and environment and agriculture.

The partnerships are as follows: UP Diliman and Newcastle University, UP Manila and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UP Los Baños and University of Warwick, and University of San Carlos and University of Southampton.

Completing the list are the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health and Keele University, De La Salle University and University College London, Ateneo De Manila University and University College London, and University of Cebu and Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science.

The collaborations directly respond to urgent needs in higher education in the Philippines.

“It is critical to invest in building capacity in emerging fields that remain unavailable locally through our best faculty members. And parallel to investing in faculty, that we invest in the upgrading of our institutions so that they become a nurturing academic environment for our learners,” Licuanan said.

“With this Newton-CHED partnership, we hope to take advantage of this five-year transition period to develop our faculty and increase the quality of higher education in the country,” she added.

Institutional partnerships present a huge opportunity for local institutions to improve their respective university rankings, UK Ambassador Asif Ahmad said.

“We’ve always been highly committed as far as our internal science is concerned and wanted to reach out. I believe in the end that the programs will strengthen academic discovery as well as the institutions here locally,” he said.