MEDICAL COLLEGE TAKES A LEAD ROLE IN RESEARCH
The Fiji National University’s (FNU) College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (CMNHS) is taking a lead role in ensuring its research activities are relevant and responsive.
This is towards the needs of the Fijian Government and the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) as a whole.
This is after the college recently restructured and endorsed an integrated virtual research institute – the Fiji Institute of Pacific Health Research (FIPHR).
A World Bank Health Economist based in Suva, Carol Dayo Obure, said it was a credible venture to bring research under one umbrella within a country and also the Pacific region.
“From the World Bank perspective, we do a lot of advisory and analytical work within the Pacific Health region, and it is good for us to have all this information available (under the college).”
“This is a very good venue to be able to have research (data) available for people,” Ms Obure said during the first Research Stakeholders Meeting held at the Tanoa Plaza, in Suva, yesterday.
Meanwhile, college Dean Dr William May opened the meeting saying: “FIPHR has been designed to support and ensure that our college’s research grows substantially. “Under the guidance of our newly-appointed Associate Dean Research, Associate Professor Dr Donald Wilson, the ambition of this Institute is strategic action in four priority areas to support Fiji and our neighbouring PICs. They are:
■ Sustainably developing healthier communities by focusing on knowledge creation;
■ Exchange, integration and application through research;
■ Innovation and research capacity needed to address health and wellness; and
■ Inform the region’s health outcomes in the future.” Dr May added that in line with the ambition of the institute, they had also developed a comprehensive Research Strategic Plan for 2020-2025, which would guide its overall direction and activities over the next five years.
“It is an exciting season for our college as we depart in a planned way from our previous business-as-usual research activities, from which we have learned so much and through which we have achieved so much.”