Strengthening
Partnerships
among
government,
industry,
and academe
STRIDE is an eight-year, USAID-funded activity to enhance innovation-led economic growth in the Philippines through building the university sector’s capacity for industry-relevant applied research. STRIDE worked closely with the Government of the Philippines through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and higher education institutions (HEIs) throughout the country; a network of knowledge and technology transfer offices (KTTO) and career centers in Philippine universities; and other innovation stakeholders and networks of innovation agents. STRIDE implemented different components of the activity throughout the country, focusing on sites of the Cities Development Initiative of the USAID.
USAID/PH launched STRIDE in response to multiple pressing challenges that the Philippines faces at the global and local levels. These challenges require science. technology, innovation, and partnership to promote innovation and upgrading in Philippine industries. They include:
Intensifying competition from globalization and regional integration
Increasing natural disaster, environment degradation, and climate change
Persistent poverty and increasing inequality
Specifically, the Philippines lacks even the minimum number of scientists and technologists needed for innovation-driven development and faces insufficient investment in science and technology (S&T) human resource development, research and development (R&D), and physical infrastructure. Low innovation-driven development and inadequate investment in S&T result in low industrial and agricultural productivity, overall inefficiency, and meager output of knowledge products such as scientific publications, patents, and innovations. Moreover, long-standing legal, financial, and administrative rules and practices that stifle R&D, innovation, and productivity place a burden on the S&T sector in particular and Philippine society in general and have prevented science, technology, innovation, and partnership goals of poverty reduction and sustainable development.
A disconnect occurs between Higher education institutions (HEIs), as producers of research, and those in the private sector, the consumer of this research.
Higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region "Contribution very little to technology adaption and upgrading in firms. Firms often engage in research and development alone or with other groups, but they have limited collaboration with universities and very few formal university-industry links."
2021 Word Bank report
Putting higher education to work: skills and research for growth in East Asia
STRIDE responds to these challenges with the primary goal of strengthening the Philippines’ science, technology, research, and innovation capacity to attain inclusive growth.
From 2013 to 2017, STRIDE helped form partnerships between universities and industry to enhance the Philippines’ capacity for innovation-led economic growth. Innovation was a vital component of the Philippines’ national development plans in 2017, recognizing its importance in driving self-sustaining economic growth. In 2018, USAID/PH extended STRIDE’s performance period for three additional years and extended it once more through July 2022 to time it with the Philippine Development Plan 2017–2022. This plan aims to advance the Philippines toward inclusive and sustainable economic growth and development through science, technology, and innovation (STI). With this extension, STRIDE revised its goal and expected results to focus on intermediate results (IRs), new tasks, and more significant support from the Government of the Philippines.
Catalyzing Progress
in Science, Technology, and Innovation
STRIDE was designed to address the challenges confronting higher education in the Philippines in science, technology, research, and innovation. Its overall objective is to strengthen STI capacity in Philippine higher education, focusing on disciplines that contribute to high-growth economic sectors. For example, electronics, chemical industries, alternative energy, translational medicine, agri-business, information and communication technologies), to stimulate and accelerate broad-based economic growth.
The activity’s first five years sought to improve STI faculty and research staff capacity in the HEIs; strengthen partnerships between academe and industry, and strengthen HEI policy and management capacity to improve the STI ecosystem. STRIDE subsequently reformulated intermediate results (IRs) into three “missions”:
Industry/private sector engagement
STI capacity development
Policy and Management
The original three-year extension from July 2018 until July 16, 2021, now extended through July 2022, maintained the overall goal of STRIDE to strengthen STI capacity for inclusive growth in the Philippines. To achieve this goal, STRIDE works toward improvements in three IRs that it redefined during the planning process for the three-year extension.
This IR builds on and expands STRIDE-supported KTTOs, University Career Centers, and Professional Science Masters (PSM) programs. STRIDE is helping to enhance the mentoring capacity of the original partner universities within these initiatives; specifically, transitioning them into powerful mentor-institutions. STRIDE also continues to develop an STI post-doctoral training center and assists select universities in becoming active participants in the upcoming Regional Inclusive Innovation Centers (RIICs). STRIDE also supports the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) in developing innovation diagnostics and programs for its member HEIs.
Under this IR, STRIDE is supporting STI research, policy analysis, and implementation toward an improved regulatory environment in government and in universities. STRIDE will continue its work in the policy areas of procurement, institutional incentives, and extension for S&T research, as well as support to DOST on capturing the impact of STI investments. Where necessary, STRIDE is providing training in both the formulation and the execution of policy.
To accomplish this IR, STRIDE is strengthening innovation ecosystem development efforts of the Philippine Government by providing targeted technical assistance to agencies and institutions that are central to the innovation ecosystem. STRIDE also is providing assistance in selected regions and sectors as identified by government agencies in the Filipinnovation Roadmap. In addition, this IR ensures continued technical assistance and support in strengthening links between industry, academe, and government. Organization of targeted innovation workshops and forums is continuing, along with the capacity building and convergence meetings needed to sustain such tasks into the future.
STRIDE helps form partnerships between universities and industry to enhance the nation’s capacity for innovation-led economic growth through the following strategies:
Specific strategies to achieve the objectives include the following:
STRIDE Results Framework
STRIDE monitors and manages progress based on their results-based framework (Figure 1).
This framework sets out 1) development, 2) results, and 3) metrics that STRIDE uses to measure effectiveness
Figure 2 details additional tasks for STRIDE to complete during Year 8 (2021–2022), beyond those listed in Figure 1, as follows:
