NDOH LAUNCHES PNG’S FIRST HEALTH RESEARCH PORTAL

The National Department of Health (NDoH) was pleased to being a part of the Medical 

Symposium to celebrate 50 years of the Medical Society in Papua New Guinea with the 

opportunity to look back, to assess progress, and to reflect on the challenges that lie ahead and 

how to overcome these challenges from 2014 going forward. On September 1, 2014 NDoH 

launched PNG’s National Health & HIV Research Agenda and the Health Research Portal.

Dr. Kevin Soli, a Senior Health Systems Researcher from the Health Research Unit of NDoH 

advocated to experienced, novice or future medical researchers both local and international to 

visit the web address: www.hrp.health.gov.pg and register as investigators. “The purpose of 

the health research portal is to improve accountability, efficiency and quality of health 

research conducted in PNG by providing information on all ongoing research and hence 

increasing transparency and by streamlining the ethics review process” Dr. Soli highlighted.

Additionally, benefits include (1) Public access, (2) Tracking and utilisation of research 

outputs by stakeholders and (3) Great tool for learning how to organize research proposals 

and submitting articles to scientific journals. The portal is live but still at infancy however, 

registration of investigators and submission of their research protocols will build the database

content. PNG’s first health research portal is a secure and integrated online management 

system for health research. Research is fundamental for evidence-based policy and decision 

making that will guide successful implementation of the national research priorities. Dr. Soli 

acknowledges Dr. Manju Rani and Mr. Edouard Lavaud from WHO for their collaborative 

effort and technical expertise for developing the web portal including assistance from Dr.

Kitur, Paik Tade, Elis Wafiware, Manah Dindi, Ila Rouka, and Rose Puipui from the 

Performance Monitoring and Research Branch. The Health Research Unit of NDoH supports 

development of national research oversight, as secretariat to the Medical Research Advisory 

Council in the short term, and the National Health Research Council in the future according to 

PNG’s Health Research Policy. Sir Puka Temu officiated the launching then pledged 

PGK1 million for NDoH’s initiative to improve capacity to coordinate the use of 

research to inform policies and health system developments.