EVALUATION OF THE

NATIONAL HIGHER
EDUCATION RESEARCH
AGENDA I: 1997-2008 and
NHERA-2
A.
C. ALCALA, RESPONSES
R.N. PADUA, O.D.
LACHICA

INTRODUCTIO
N

The purpose of this presentation is to examine and evaluate

the outcomes of the National Higher Education Research

Agenda I, which was implemented from 1997 to 2008. This
research agenda was finalized and implemented in 1998
after a series of consultations with higher education
stakeholders and contained the following basic provisions:

National Higher Education Research Goal: to establish

and inculcate a culture of research in Philippine higher

education institutions;

National Higher Education Research Objectives: aimed

to: (a.) increase the research productivity of Philippine higher

education institutions and individuals, (b.) establish a system
of research-based policy environment through periodic
commissioned researches, and (c.) establish support
structures that would ensure long-term sustainability of
research activities in Philippine higher education institutions.

 In pursuit of the explicit objectives of NHERA-I, the

Commission on Higher Education formulated key

strategies to respond to the three major areas of
concern,
namely:
(a.)
increasing
research
productivity and establishing a culture of research by
capacitating and empowering individual academics
in Philippine HEIs, (b.) commissioning reputable
higher education individuals or groups of individuals
to conduct researches which will become bases for
higher education policies (commissioning), and (c.)
decentralizing the level of administrative operations
for higher education research in order to make the
logistical support for research more accessible to
researchers in various regions of the country.

PRESENTATION OF
RESULTS
INPUTS
The total support for the
implementation of NHERA-I over a
ten-year period amounted to over
PhP254M or an average of about
P25 million per year to support the
various activities outlined in the
plan.

The establishment of structures to ensure

that higher education support was within

reach of the stakeholders constituted the
greatest bulk of the funding for the
operationalization of NHERA-I accounting for
over 50 percent of the total amount for
research. This funding went to the operations
of the various Zonal Research Centers, which,
in turn, were responsible for reviewing all
research proposals from the various zones
and passing judgment on the merit of these
proposals. The Zonal Research Centers also
spearheaded most of the research capabilitybuilding activities in their zones of influence.

Expectedly,

direct support for research to

individuals and institutions accounted for the
next largest bulk of funding (33.71%) under
NHERA-I. This amount supported selected theses
and dissertations of graduate students, grantsin-aid to higher education institutions doing
research and commissioned researches. The
purpose of providing direct research support to
such individuals and institutions was to stimulate
more quality research outputs from colleges and
universities. It may also be noted that within this
funding class, support to small colleges and
individuals through Grantsin-Aid accounted for
over 60% of the total reported expenditure of
P85,804,246.00.
The remaining 8.24% of the funding allotted for
the implementation of NHERA-I was earmarked
for research capability-building through trainings,
seminars,
presentation
in
international
conferences and visiting fellows.

The infusion of over P254 million over

a ten-year period to implement the

National Higher Education Research
Agenda resulted in tangible outputs in
line with CHEDs objectives for
research

OUTPUT

major premise for the successful

implementation of NHERA-I was the
decentralization
of
the
administrative/logistical
support
to
researchI:
operations
in the various regions
AREA
DECENTRALIZATION
of the country. Decentralization was seen
OF
LOCI
OF making research
as a THE
major step
towards
support more accessible to the researchers
ADMINISTRATIVE
working in the various HEIs in the country

OPERATIONS

To this end, Zonal Research Centers were

identified by CHED. The Zonal Research

Centers
served
as
the
administrative/technical arm of CHED to
implement the various aspects of the plan.
The ZRCs were identified on the basis of
their: (a.) technical capability in conducting
research in at least three (3) of the major
higher education disciplines, and (b.)
administrative capability to implement the
contents of NHERA-I in terms of proposal
reviews, assistance to other HEIs, monitoring
and evaluation and others.

Table 2: Outputs
Research Centers
ROLE
1. Trainings/seminars
and capabilitybuilding activities
2. Number of research
proposals reviewed
and evaluated

of

the

Zonal

INDICATORS
160 short-term trainings conducted to
enhance research capability
Close to 4,000 higher education faculty
/researchers trained in research
1,200 research proposals reviewed or
an average of 12 proposals per ZRC
per year

3. Number of
Completed
Researches
Monitored and
Reported
4. Monitoring and
assistance to HEIs
in zone of influence

Thesis/Dissertation: 230
GIA: 102
Commissioned Studies: 28
SUBTOTAL
OF
RESEARCHES
MONITORED: 360
1,730 HEIs monitored and assisted or
an average of about 173 HEIs per year

5. Administrative
Support PS

20 ZRC job-orders or an average of 2

per ZRC for 10 years

6. Support to Research
Commissioned to
ZRCs (in the form
of GIA or

200 studies conducted by the ZRCs or

an average of about 2 studies per ZRC
per year e.g. graduate tracer studies,
compilation of research statistics per

EXPENDITURE
P20,000,000.00
@ P5,000 per person
13.54%
P2,400,000.00
@ P2,000 per proposal for 2
experts honoraria
1.62%
P1,800,000.00
@ P5,000 per research
monitored to cover travel
and experts honoraria
1.22%
P17,300,000.00
@P10,000 per HEI assisted
through:
Research Mentoring: P5,000
for one(1) expert
Travel: P5,000
11.71%
P24,000,000.00
@P10,000 per job order per
month
16.24%
P82,263,380.00
@
P500,000
per
study
conducted
55.67%

 Apart from the administrative cost of operations through

payment of personal services or human resources in the

ZRCs, the greater bulk of the total allocation for the
operations of ZRCs went to support the researches
commissioned to the ZRCs themselves (either GIA or
special studies needed by CHED). This aspect accounted
for 55.67% of the entire amount allotted followed by
expenditures for trainings and capability building (13.54%)
and monitoring/assistance to smaller HEIs (11.71%).

It may be surmised that from the output of 200 research

studies alone, ranging from a compilation of research

statistics (efficiency, faculty to research ratios etc.) to a
compilation and analysis of research outputs of HEIs in the
country, the existence of the ZRCs is well justified since
the conduct of such studies is not within the
administrative purview of the regular staff of CHED.
Moreover, capability building trainings were more
extensively and intensively implemented by the ZRCs
within their zones of influence than would have been the
case had the operation been centralized in Manila.

AREA
DIRECT
While theII:
major
concern for the plan period was
the establishment
of
a conducive research
SUPPORT
TO
RESEARCH
environment for research in Philippine higher
education, a sizeable portion of the total funding
infusion for NHERA-I was devoted to direct grants
and support to research for individuals and
institutions. As listed in Table 1, a total of over
P85 million was earmarked for this purpose. Table
3 shows the tangible outputs for the infusion of
P85 million for direct research support:

Tabular

values show the inclination of the plan to

encourage and motivate promising individuals and
institutions to conduct world class research as can be
inferred from the fact that over fifty percent (50%) of the
allocation went to support institutions or individuals
expected to do good quality research through CHEDs
grant-in-aid program. Only a little over 25% went to
support studies that CHED needed for policy
development in the form of commissioned studies e.g.
normative financing studies, amalgamation and typology
studies etc.

As a developmental agency for the furtherance of higher

education research, CHEDs focus shifted away from

supporting graduate thesis and dissertations toward
more support for institutional level research through
grants in aid.

Hand in hand with the two other major areas of concern is the
concern for developing the capability of HEIs and individuals in
research.

CAPABILITY
BUILDING
DIMENSION
Research Capability-Building and
Enhancing Research Productivity
(Visiting Fellows program,
trainings/seminars, presentation
in international conferences)
2.1Support to Presentation of
Papers in Local and International
Forums
2.2 Visiting Fellows Program
2.3 Conferences and Seminars
Conducted
2.3.1 National
2.3.2 International

AMOUNT

TOTAL

P20,986,073

P20,986,073.00
P13,127,948.00
(62.56%)
P1,858,125.00
(8.84%)
P3,000,000.00
(14.30%)
P3,000,000.00
(14.30%)

INDICATORS

124 paper presenters or

about 12 per year
4 visiting fellows supported
3000 participants
3000 participants

Support

for research capability building

appears to have been concentrated in
supporting
completed
papers
for
presentation in local and international
forums (62.56%) while only 8.84% of the
amount in this dimension was earmarked
for the Visiting Fellows Program, a program
which could have been an effective strategy
for assisting smaller HEIs develop their
capabilities
for
research.
As
earlier
mentioned, actual trainings and seminars
for research capability enhancement were
devolved to the Zonal Research Centers.

OUTCOME AND IMPACT

Given the outputs earlier presented,
ANALYSIS
we now attempt to evaluate the
implementation of the NHERA-I in
terms of verifiable outcomes and
impact on the entire higher education
system in terms of research.

AREA I: DECENTRALIZATION
OF THE LOCUS OF
ADMINISTRATIVE
OPERATIONS
The impact and outcome analysis for this area of concern were
guided by the following key questions:

With

the establishment of the ZRCs as a strategy for

decentralization, did access to research logistics (technical
and financial) improve?

Was greater efficiency achieved through decentralization in

terms of more prompt service to higher education stakeholders

in research? Was there a more equitable allocation of resources
for research across the different regions of the country?

Was the higher education system assured of better quality

researches produced across the different regions of the country?

1.1

Improved
Access
to
Research
Logistics. In order to assess this dimension, it is
necessary to know the access situation prior to
the implementation of NHERA-I. However, except
for the EDCOM(1993) report, no comprehensive
data base on higher education research funding
from the defunct Bureau of Higher Education
could be obtained. Thus, we resorted to
interviewing key informants and learned that no
program was ever available for funding higher
education research prior to CHED but instead,
the few researches conducted were funded by
external funding agencies.

As a surrogate measure of access to research

logistics, we did a time-series analysis of the

number of research proposals reviewed and
funded as submitted to the ZRCs for review
over the past ten years to the number of
proposals reviewed. A positive upward trend in
this index would be indicative of greater access
to research logistics in the sense that more and
more higher education academics are getting
seriously involved in research presumably
because of the availability of research support
in the regions i.e. more researches are actually
getting funded.

Another surrogate measure of access

to research logistics (in terms of

technical support) would be the ratio of
the number of research authors who
were trained under the capability
building program to the total number
of persons trained under the program
to demonstrate how the training
programs successfully capacitated the
individual researchers.

Table 4: Indices of Access to Research

Logistics

YEAR

**INDEX 1: No.of Proposals Submitted for

Review to the Number of Proposals Actually
Reviewed and Funded
(Financial Access Index)
Submitted *Funded Index

***INDEX
2:
NUMBER
OF
RESEARCH AUTHORS TRAINED
UNDER THE PROGRAM TO THE
TOTAL NUMBER OF PERSONS
TRAINED
(Technical Access Index)
Authors Trained Index

1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008

212
260
308
360
420
460
500
520
550
680
740

10
25
27
32
37
48
67
78
83
91
98

2
6
4
8
5
16
14
12
10
22
44

.0094
.0231
.0129
.0222
.0119
.0348
.0280
.0231
.0182
.0324
.0595

400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400
400

.025
.0625
.0675
.080
.0925
.1200
.1675
.1950
.2075
.2275
.2450

nded: Analysis limited to GIA and Commissioned studies

ndex 1:Positive upward trend = more and more researches are getting funded ou
ssions
ndex 2: Positive Upward Trend = trained researchers are becoming more engaged in the
duct of actual research and publication

The

establishment of the ZRCs had

greater impact on the accessibility of
research support (for the HEIs and
researchers) in terms of the centers ability
to provide technical assistance than on the
centers ability to process and fund
research proposals. This can be gleaned
from the more pronounced slope of the
second graph on technical Access index
than the corresponding slope of the first
graph (financial access index).

 1.2 Enhanced Efficiency and More Equitable Resource

Allocation. A good measure of efficiency would have been to

calculate the average waiting time of a researcher from
proposal submission to funding decision. This information,
however, is not currently available. However, since decisions
are now devolved to the zonal research centers, it is
conjectured that such waiting times have been considerably
reduced compared to a central office decision paradigm.

As a surrogate measure of efficiency , we calculate an index

defined by:

Efficiency (%) = output resources/input resources x 100

In particular, we calculate efficiency for just one aspect, namely

the inputs and outputs for the Direct Support to Research with
the following information:

GIA and Commissioned Researches: completed and published

Thesis: 80% completed
Dissertation: 90% completed

Thus:

Input = Total Direct Support for Research =

P85,804,246
Output = GIA + Commissioned Research + .80 x
Thesis + .90 x Dissertation
= P50,848,944 + P22,442,416 +
P3,217,560 + 7,641,842 = P84,150,762

Therefore, the average efficiency of the system is

about : 98.07%.

The establishment of the ZRCs, with their hands-on

and first-hand management of the funded
researches, can be identified as the main reason for
this high efficiency level.

We defer the discussion on equity in the next

section.

1.3

Better Quality Research Outputs. The

establishment of the ZRCs also ipso facto defined
a quality assurance system for research in
higher education which hitherto was absent in the
Philippine higher education system. The proposal
reviews conducted by the ZRCs were rigid and
strict peer-review processes, thus, ensuring better
quality researches in the end.
A quantitative
measure of quality can be evolved from the
percentages of researches funded by CHED and
subsequently published in strict peer-reviewed
journals. Table 5 shows the figures for this purpose:

Of

the researches funded by CHED

(through the ZRCs), about half were
published in refereed journals or in ISIindexed journals. This shows that the
quality assurance system for research
adopted through the ZRCs has improved
the quality of published papers, and the
Commission on Higher Education made
the right decision to decentralize the focus
of administrative operations to improve
the quality of research in higher education.

AREA II: DIRECT SUPPORT

TO RESEARCH

To assess the outcomes and impact of the funding

infusion to directly support research, a survey was

conducted. A survey questionnaire was floated to the
individual or institutional grantee of direct funding
support from CHED. The key questions that guided us
in our analysis of the outcomes and impact of area II
funding are:

Were the resources for research equitably allocated

across regions and institutions?

What were the significant contributions of the funded

researches to the discipline or national development?

Presentation of Data

Distribution of grantees by region

A total of 53 CHED grantees responded to
the CHED Research Grant Survey fielded
for summing up outputs under the National
Higher
Education
Research
Agenda
(NHERA): 1998-2007. These grantees were
those who received thesis writing grants,
dissertation writing grants and the GrantsIn-Aid given to faculty and researchers of
HEIs. The grants covered the period from
1998 to 2007.
Figure 3 shows the
distribution of grantees by region.

Equity Issue in terms of distribution of

grants
As shown herein, Region VII had 12 recipients,
Region VIII and CAR had 8 grantees each, Region
II had 7, Region I had 6, and Region VI with 5
grantees. The other Regions had 3 or less
grantees. No data were received from Regions
III and the ARMM, hence these are not included
here. This may be because either there were no
grantees from these areas, or none of the
grantees
bothered
to
respond
to
the
questionnaire sent by CHED.

There were only 6 recipients of thesis writing

grants, 22 for Grants-InAid,

and 25 got
dissertation writing grants. Out of the 6 thesis
grantees, two (2) were from CAR , two (2) from
Region 7 and one (1) each from Regions I and II.
For the dissertation grantees, the highest
number came from Region VII with 8 grantees,
followed by CAR with 6 grantees, and Region II
with 5 grantees. All the other regions had either
2 or less grantees.
The respondents are
distributed in Regions III, IV, V, X and the ARMM
are not indicated.

The 22 GIA grantees are distributed

only among eight regions. Regions III,

IX, ARMM and CAR had no GIA grantees.
Region VIII topped the list with 7
grantees. Oddly enough, while Region
VIII enjoyed a relatively large number of
recipients, the other regions only had 13 recipients each. Furthermore, it was
observed that the 7 grantees all came
from one institution.

The studies conducted with the three

grants
covered
eight
disciplines:
Agriculture; Natural Sciences, Biology
and
Biodiversity;
Engineering;
Information
Technology;
Education;
Health and Social Sciences.

 The

number of grantees for each discipline were:

Agriculture-11;
Natural
Science,
Biology
and
Biodiversity-19; Engineering-3; Information Technology4; Education-8; Health3,
and Social Science-16
grantees. These disciples were identified as priority
areas of the NHERA I.
Nineteen (19) of the grantees had their studies under
the areas of Natural Sciences, Biology and Biodiversity.
This is followed by the Social Sciences with 16, and
Agriculture with 11. Engineering and Health had the
least number of studies made, with only three (3)
studies each.
Of the total amount of P 6,764,800 that CHED granted,
73% was given to GIAs, 23% for dissertation writing,
and 4% went to thesis writing.
As indicated by the
respondents, the amount can be broken down to: Thesis
Php 294,000; Dissertation Php 1,551,500, and GIAs
Php 4,919,300.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO NATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT OR THE
Table 1 indicates that the thesis grantees showed the least impact on the surveyed
DISCIPLINES
area among the three groups of grantees. As shown, not one of the grantees

indicated that he/she had made contributions to the area of Knowledge generated
and used and impact on policy formulation, dissemination and implementation.
Only 2 papers were published in refereed local journals and 5 were presented in local
conferences.
The Dissertation grantees, on the other hand, contributed more to the area surveyed

than the Thesis grantees, except on policy making where only one paper indicated
that it had developed guidelines for policy dissemination and implementation. In the
areas of Knowledge generated and used, Inputs to Instruction, and Research
Publication they indicated that they have made significant contributions. In terms of
publication, nine (9) have been published in refereed journals, with two published in
international refereed journals. Twenty (20) out of the 24 dissertations were presented
in conferences.
In terms of the areas surveyed, the GIA grantees did comparatively well.

While the
other two groups (Thesis and Dissertation) had practically not done anything towards
policy making, the GIA studies have contributed to formulation, dissemination and
implementation of policy. All the 22 GIAs were either published in refereed journals or
presented in a conference and published as proceedings.

Given

the outputs for the research

capability
program, we now wish
AREA
III:building
CAPABILITY
to find out the outcomes and impact of
BUILDING
these outputs to the overall higher
education research system. We were
guided only by one question: Did the
program significantly impact on the
number of active researchers in
Philippine colleges and universities? That
is, were the capability-building trainings
successful in developing new researchers?

 Given

the huge number of participants in the training

programs over the ten-year period, a follow up study of all the
participants proved to be infeasible. Thus, we again resort to a
surrogate measure of impact in this dimension through:

Training

Impact Index (individual) = (# of REPUBLICA

ENTRIES) divided by (NO. OF PARTICIPANTS 2000-2003) X
100%
Training Impact Index (institution) = (# of HEI RESEARCH
AWARDEES ) divided by (NO. OF ENTRIES 2000-2003) X 100%

The logic of this surrogate index is as follows: The participants

to the trainings conducted by the ZRCs and CHED in the
period 2000 to 2003 were the potential pool of researchers
who will be capable to compete in the two award systems
which began in 2004. Thus, the number of entries to these
two award systems is an indication of the success of the
training programs. Admittedly, this is a very crude measure of
impact in this dimension. In the absence of a tracer study,
however, this might be the best measure to consider.

Data:
No. of Participants to Trainings (2000-2003): 600
participants (approximate figure)
No. of REPUBLICA Entries: 181
No. of Entries Best Research: 142
No. of Awards for Best Research: 50

Hence, the impact index is:

(3.) Training impact index (INDIVIDUAL)= 181/600 X

100% = 30.17%
(4.) Training impact index (INSTITUTIONAL)= 50/142 X
100% = 35.21%

The research capability building programs of CHED

seemed to have greater impact at the institutional
level rather than at an individual researcher level.
Overall, however, the capability building program has
an average impact index of only 32.5% or less than a
third of the target clients. These indices are low.

EVALUATION SUMMARY
The paradigm of the National Higher Education

Research Agenda- I revolved around three main

areas of concern, namely: (1) decentralization of
the loci of research administrative operations,
(2.) enhancing research productivity through
direct support for research to individuals and
institutions, and (3.) increasing the pool of
capable
researchers
through
a
research
capability building program. The three main
areas of concern attempted to address a 10-year
goal of establishing a Research Culture in
Philippine
Higher
Education.
The
logical
connections of the three areas of concern have
been shown earlier.

Consequently, the evaluation process consisted of

looking into the inputs-outputs-outcome and

impacts of each dimension on the overall goal.

In

Area I (on decentralization of the loci of

research administrative operations through the
ZRCs) , results revealed that: (1) greater access
to research logistics was realized through the
devolution of functions to the ZRCs with even
greater gains in the area of access to technical
expertise, (2.) a 98.1% gain in efficiency in
operations was realized through the ZRCs
through the devolved process of proposal
evaluation, and (3.) better quality researches
were produced with a 36.8% quality index. The
area on decentralization, therefore, positively
impacted on the system of research logistic
operations in the country.

In Area 2 (on direct support to research),

results revealed that the GIAs and

Commissioned studies contributed to the
development of various higher education
disciplines and in the formulation of
higher education policies respectively.
Some dimensions in this area which need
to be carefully looked into include:
ensuring greater equity (across regions)
in the distribution of thesis/dissertation
grants and increasing the funds allotted
for these two dimensions.

Finally, in Area 3 (on capability building), results

reveal a low 32.5% impact of the capability

building programs on the intended targets
(individuals or schools). This demonstrates a
need to intensify the various research capability
building programs of CHED with particular
emphasis on the Visiting Fellows Program (with
fellows assigned to a cluster of schools to lead in
the area of research and research management).
This strategy has the potential of rapidly
increasing the pool of qualified researchers in the
various colleges and universities in the different
regions of the country.

Table 7: HEIs Engaged in Various Research

Activities

Activities
Research Capability Building
Research Projects Implemented
HEIs under the ZRCs
HEIs Engaged in Research
Researchers Involved in GIA
and/or Commission Research

Number
283
73
511
107
351

HEIs involved in ZRC projects 107

The Table 7 above shows the summary of
research related activities of the HEIs under the
ZRCs.

As shown here there were 511 HEIs that has been assigned
to 11 Zonal Research Centers. The member of HEIs per ZRC
ranges from the smallest of 20 to the largest of 69 HEIs or an
average of 46 HEIs per ZRC. Since 1998 to 2007, a total of 283
Research Capability Building activities have been conducted.
These were mostly in a form of seminars, workshops, and
focused group discussions. The objective of these capability
building activities was to equip the participants with research
skills to perform researches along the research thrust of the
corresponding ZRCs. This also included the discussion of the
preparation of research proposal. The effectiveness of the
capability building activity is reflected in the number of proposal
submitted after the activity. which eventually be refined and be
endorsed for CHED funding. After the project shall have been
finished, if necessary, a writeshop on writing of report both for
presentation and writing for refereed journal were conducted.

Since there were 73 projects/researches implemented,

indicates that the rate of success of these research capability
building activities is about 25 per cent or one research project for
every 4 capability building activities.
The table above further reveals that there were 351
researchers involved in the these projects. It implies therefore
that there were about 5 researchers involved in each research
project.
This practice is in line with the CHED OPPRI policy of
encouraging research projects to be inter/multi
disciplinary in nature.
As indicated earlier, 351
researchers were involved in the 73 research projects
and these researchers were from the 107 HEIs.
It is sad to note however, that only 107 of the 511
HEIs were involved in these research activities
spearheaded by the ZRC which only account for 22 per
cent of the HEIs. This means only about one in every five
HEIs were involve in research involving the ZRCs. I think
there is a lot that needs to be done to improve this

To determine how the grantees of research performed,

the CHED OPPRI fielded questionnaires on the impact of
funded studies on: Knowledge Generated and Used, Inputs
to Instruction, Impact on Policy and Research Publications
A total of 53 CHED grantees responded to the CHED
Research Grant Survey fielded for summing up outputs
under the National Higher Education Research Agenda
(NHERA): 1998-2007. Although this is only about 16 per
cent of the total number of grantees, at this juncture and for
the sake of the analysis, we assume that the sample
gathered is representative of the grantees who received
thesis writing grants, dissertation writing grants and the
Grants-In-Aid given to faculty and researchers of HEIs. The
grants covered the period from 1998 to 2007.

PART II: RESPONSE OF

NHERA-2

NHERA-1 RESULTS

NHERA-2 RESPONSE

A. DECENTRALIZATION OF LOCI
OF RESEARCH ADMINISTRATIVE
OPERATIONS

A. RE-ENGINEERED DECENTRALIZATION PLAN

1. Low effectiveness index for

capability building programs for
individuals (author:trainee ratio)

1. Capability building programs that will be supported

by CHED will henceforth be output-based i.e. should
result in publishable papers. Non-output based
trainings will be the responsibility of the HEIs.
Capability-building programs will be PURPOSIVE
rather than ad-hoc.

2. Low effectiveness index for

capacitating HEIs

2. Strengthen/reinforce the Senior Visiting Fellows

Program (SVFP) through a revised TORe.g.
a.Each SVF takes care of mentoring at least three(3)
HEIs through regular monthly consultations for two(2)
years;
b.SVF receives a monthly support from CHED/HEI that
will be attractive to retired experts;
c.SVFP shall be transferred to the CHED Regional
Satellite offices for Research.

NHERA-1 RESULTS

NHERA-2 RESPONSE

3.Low quality index for some ZRC

research outputs as evidenced by
publication in non-indexed journals

3. Reconceptualize Decentralization
viz ZRCs:
a.Identify the countrys Centers for
Research Excellence (CRE) in Luzon ,
Visayas and Mindanao (max: 5). The
only TOR for the CRE shall be the
annual publication of researches in
international indexed-journals.
b.Transfer all research administrative
functions of the ZRCs to the CHED
Regional Offices by hiring satellite
contractual staff for Research in the
regional offices in the level of a PDO
IV.

B. Capability-Building

B. (see A)

C. Direct Support to Research

C. Direct Support to Research

1. Low efficiency index for

thesis/dissertation support; low equity
response for thesis/dissertation.

1.

2. Low and slow turnouts of GIAs;

undetermined quality for some GIAs

1. Strengthen the monitoring system for

GIAs through the Regional Satellite
Research Offices.
2. Regularize the publication of Occasional
Papers and strengthen its refereeing
system viz. annual instead of occasional.

Reconceptualize support concept viz.

provide incentives for finished products
(outputs) rather than proposals e.g.
P100T per completed and published
dissertations and P50T per completed
and published thesis. Publication must
be in a refereed journal or as much as
possible in an ISI-indexed-journal.
2. Make distribution of thesis/dissertation
incentives more equitable using
graduate school population as regional
basis for equity.

3. Make distribution of GIAs equitable

across disciplines (rather than region). More
incentives for cross-cutting projects.

NHERA-1 RESULTS

NHERA-2 RESPONSE

3. Erratic and non-periodic grants for 3. Tie up Planning and Policy

Commissioned researches
Development Office with the
Research Offices functions. The
PPDO should determine policy
requirements of CHED for the year
and communicate these to CHEDs
research office for appropriate
commissioning.