People who want to give life to ideas that will address healthcare issues have a new home to let such ideas grow through the Generating Research Applications, Care, and Enterprise (GRACE) for Health Hub, a newly opened facility to complement UST鈥檚 TomasINNO Center, the in-house technology business incubator, by preparing innovators prior to incubating their marketable ideas.
Funded by the Department of Science and Technology鈥檚 Philippine Council for Health Research and Development, the GRACE Hub, whose office was inaugurated on September 16, 2024, is a project led by multi-awarded academic researchers Donald G. Manlapaz, PhD, PTRP (Department of Physical Therapy) and Agnes L. Castillo, PhD, RPh (Department of Pharmacy).
Aiming to contribute to the attainment of UN Sustainable Development Goals on Good Health and Well-being and Quality Education, the project aims to fill the void of a 鈥渉ome鈥� to synergize otherwise disparate ideas and efforts to solve various healthcare issues.
GRACE Hub is an Innovation Hub aiming to 鈥渓ead the advancement of health research and product innovation by promoting and facilitating ideas and concepts to improve the quality of health care for all Filipinos.鈥� As such, it positions itself as the pre-incubation hub of health research products, specifically those currently being supported by the Philippine government through PCHRD. The hub will provide experiential learning for health innovators, who will be trained on having an entrepreneurial mindset, generating creative ideas, and identifying a problem before these are brought to the TomasInno Center for actual incubation of the planned technology.
Operating under the Office of the Vice-Rector for Research and Innovation, the GRACE Hub will initially help innovators from the UST health sciences programs and the UST Hospital and conduct training sessions to support innovation. Once capacitated, the trained future innovators will be transferred to the TomasInno Center where the ideas can be incubated for commercialization and rollout to the public.
Future innovators may get in touch with the GRACE Hub through their Facebook Page: .
