All research protocols involving human participants, health records, clinical trials, vulnerable populations (e.g., minors, inmates, indigenous groups), or community surveys must secure ethical clearance from the PHREB Level 1 Accredited Institutional Ethics Review Committee (IERC) before data collection begins.

Review turnaround typically requires 10 to 15 working days for expedited protocols and up to 21 working days for full-board reviews. Once approved, an official Certificate of Ethical Clearance is issued and recorded in the master defense dossier.

Researchers across MCNP and ISAP can avail of institutional biostatistical and quantitative analysis support through the RDC Biostatistics Unit:

1. Accomplish Form 011 (Statistical Consultation Service Request Form) detailing the statement of the problem, operational variables, proposed analytical tests, and clean electronic dataset.
2. Submit the request to the RDC Secretariat or via the Online Inquiry Portal.
3. Attend the scheduled consultation clinic where institutional data analysts perform computations using SPSS, Jamovi, or R, and provide formal interpretation matrices.
4. Receive the official Statistician’s Clearance Certificate required for scheduling the final oral defense.

Under the institutional Standard Operating Procedures (SOP Stages 1.3 and 5.1), defenses are scheduled only after completing all prerequisites:

• Proposal Defense: Completed Chapters 1–3, signed Adviser Endorsement (Form 003), and RDC Capsule Proposal verification.
• Final Defense: Completed 5-chapter manuscript, Statistician’s Clearance Certificate (Form 011), Institutional Ethics Clearance Certificate (IERC), and verified Matrix of Corrections compliance from the proposal defense.

In accordance with institutional research integrity standards, all academic theses, faculty research papers, and journal manuscripts undergo digital similarity verification via Turnitin:

• Benchmark: The overall similarity index must be ≤ 15% (excluding bibliography and small matches under 1%).
• Manuscripts exceeding 15% must be revised and resubmitted to the RDC Plagiarism Officer for re-evaluation before final hardbound binding or journal editorial acceptance.

Through our dedicated Research Utilization Framework, completed studies with actionable findings are evaluated for 4 pathways: Policy Governance, Community Extension, Industry Tech Transfer, or Curricular Integration. The RDC drafts an official Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with partner agencies (e.g. RHUs, LGUs, PNP Regional Office 2) to deploy the research findings into real-world practice.