The OVCRD Report (May 2011-April 2014).2.10.14 | Page 35

The OVCRD Report

The Vice-Chancellor for Administration.
Fourth, during the 1285th and 1288th meetings
of the BOR held on 24 January 2013 and
20 June 2013, respectively, approval was
granted to treat as outright grants the research

Enhancing Socially Responsible Research:
The UP Diliman Institutional Committees

Renowned sociologist Robert K. Merton had
said that: “The mores of science possess a
methodological rationale but they are binding,
not only because they are procedurally
efficient, but because they are believed right
and good. They are moral as well as technical
prescriptions.” Good research practice,
therefore, exhibits both methodological rigor
and ethical correctness. It is incumbent upon
individual researchers and scholars to comply
with both standards, but there should also be
institutional mechanisms to help them meet
these standards.
In UP Diliman, these institutional mechanisms
include the Institutional Committees on
Biosafety, Animal Care and Use, and Ethics
Review, whose operations are backstopped by
the OVCRD. During the term of Chancellor
Caesar A. Saloma, the OVCRD spearheaded
the updating of the Terms of Reference and
the reconstitution of the membership of each
committee. With these tasks completed, the
committees are now actively pursuing
initiatives towards the fulfillment of their
respective mandates.

The UP Diliman Institutional Biosafety
Committee (UPD-IBC) was constituted in
1990 (through Chancellor Jose V. Abueva’s
Administrative Order No. 148 dated 8
October 1990) in acknowledgement of
Executive Order No. 514: Establishing the
Framework, Prescribing
Guidelines for its Implementation,
Strengthening the National Committee on
Biosafety of the Philippines, and for Other
Purposes. The major tasks of the UPD-IBC
manipulation
work and/or potentially hazardous biological
material research projects conducted in/by UP
Diliman, and the formulation and adoption of
emergency preparedness and response policy
and procedures for accidental spills and
personnel contamination. The current chair
(until 31 May 2014) of the Committee is Dr.
Vermando M. Aquino of the National Institute
of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
(NIMBB).
To give scholars and researchers
easier access