The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) have partnered with the Commission on Higher on Education (CHED) to formally introduced a new national initiative.
Named Philippine Technology Evaluation and Standards for Testing (PHITEST), the initiative aims to bridge the gap between laboratory-scale innovation and market or policy adoption.
Primarily, its purpose is to ensure that technologies meet performance, safety, quality, and compliance standards required by industry, regulators, and end-users.
A problem that it solves, for instance, include times when State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) produce complex and groundbreaking technologies but they fail to prove that they are ready for adoption—hence, posing a loss of economic value for the country.
Through PHITEST, the DOST aims to increase the number of validated, market-ready Filipino technologies, improve industry and investor confidence in local innovations, enable faster adoption of technologies in public and private sectors, and stronger alignment of R&D outputs with industry and regulatory requirements.
“Filipino ingenuity is not a problem to solve. The challenge lies in how we move our innovation from the laboratory to the marketplace, from prototypes to industries, meaning scaled up with mass production and from isolated success stories to sustain national impact,” said DOST Secretary Renato Solidum, Jr.
The testing and evaluation system will have its three layers namely, technology validation layer; standards, testing and certification layer; and commercialization layer.
All these will be led by the DOST and CHED, except for the commercialization part.
For now, the initiative will focus on six sectors where the Philippines has strong potential for global competitiveness—Semiconductors and Electronics, Biopharma and Health Technologies, Agri-Aqua Technologies, Renewable Energy & Circular Economy, Electric Vehicles & Aviation, and Climate Change and Resilience Technologies.
According to DOST Assistant Secretary of Technology Transfer, Communications and Commercialization Dr. Napoleon Juanillo Jr., the national testbed system is not like a regulatory body with a “pass-or-fail” system.
Instead, it will provide data that will guide the consumers on the market readiness of a product or technology.
“To begin with, in terms of human capital and institutional recurrence, we should be able to train 60 master trainers for both university presidents, vice presidents for research and extension, as well as other scientists and specialists coming from universities and exposing them to global test kits,” explained Juanillo.
The 60 master trainers will undergo global benchmarking and Master Trainer Development and will provide the training of 500 PHITEST assessors from SUCs and select HEIs.
The DOST and CHED are also targeting to establish 10 validation centers situated across the country, mainly composed of universities and private higher education institutions.
However, both the DOST and CHED have yet to finalize the list of centers as they are also considering the readiness of the SUCs and HEIs in terms of infrastructure.
“So, for ordinary Filipinos, for everyone who wants to do PHITEST, PHITEST means something very concrete,” emphasized Solidum.
“Safer medical technologies in health centers, more productive farms in rural communities, better quality products in the market, and more stable, higher-value jobs in industry and technology sectors.“
He concluded, “Because innovation is not only about ideas, but trust. What we sell are the solutions that are proven to be effective. Solutions that are trusted.”
