On 24 June 2020, Step Up Strategy Advisor Michael Canares facilitated a research presentation of seven researchers from Notre Dame of Marbel University who used open contracting data to analyse procurement performance of the Provincial Government of South Cotabato. Mr. Canares led a team of mentors who trained and coached the researchers in undertaking research projects on public procurement. The project, dubbed as the First South Cotabato Open Contracting Research Challenge, was implemented by the European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines with funding support from HIVOS.

The research projects were as follows:

Team 1-Forecasting Contractors’ Slippage for Infrastructure Projects in South Cotabato, by Cubort Bulanon and Chucky Marie Fernandez

Team 2- Finding Areas Underserved by High Schools in South Cotabato Using Network Analysis by Elisha Alvarado

Team 3 – Analysing Cost Efficiency of Procurement by Lot, by Michelle Capistrano

Team 4 – Profiling Contractor Performance of Contractors in the Province of South Cotabato, by Denver John Acebedo, Neiljan Raborar, and Fritz Tuazon

The research teams were identified in February this year and were trained through a Research Boot Camp held in General Santos City on March 11-13, 2020. The researchers then conducted research implementation from March to May this year, despite the pandemic. Luckily, the province of South Cotabato was least affected by COVID 19, allowing the researchers to conduct field implementation using both offline and online means.

Mr Canares mentored Teams 3 and 4, while Team 1 was mentored by Layertech Software Labs CEO Frei Sangil and Team 2 by Ben Hur Pintor, geospatial generalist, open-source and open data advocate, and maptivist.