MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Science and Technology will level up its technical and research and development to local enterprises, whether large corporations or MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) by providing funding to academe-enterprise collaborations for useful R&D, DOST Secretary Fortunato dela Peña said.
He said this will be done under the Collaborative Research and Development to Leverage Philippine Economy (CRADLE) program that mainly taps state universities and colleges, private higher educational institutions or the R&D institutions of the DOST to conduct R&D sought by local companies and MSMEs as they come up with new products and innovations, and attain more efficiency and competitiveness.
CRADLE aims to help create a synergistic relationship between academe as producer of knowledge and manpower, and industry as the entity which translates technologies to real world applications to generate new opportunities for Filipinos in the form of new industries, enterprises, jobs and solutions to pressing community and national problems.
“The goal of our scientists and researchers should not be just to produce studies that get published, many of which just gather dust in the library, but their research should lead to innovation, or new products, or product development among our entrepreneurs,” Dela Peña said.