The renewed Memorandum of Understanding between the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) School of Nursing and the University of the Philippines Manila College of Nursing (UPCN) provides an excellent opportunity to move from longstanding institutional cooperation toward a more structured, outcomes-oriented program of nursing research, education, and knowledge translation.
We propose establishing the PolyU–UP Manila Global Nursing Evidence and Innovation Collaborative, a joint platform that will develop and test nursing solutions relevant to Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the wider Asian region.
The Collaborative will build upon the partnership's existing achievements—including the establishment of the UP JBI Centre, academic exchanges, service-learning and student mobility, guest lectures, and doctoral training at PolyU—while introducing a stronger emphasis on joint knowledge production and measurable healthcare impact.
Rather than undertaking isolated collaborative activities, the initiative would organize cooperation around three interconnected areas.
First, Joint Research and Evidence Translation. Faculty teams from both universities could undertake two to three comparative or multicountry projects annually addressing shared priorities such as healthy ageing, nursing workforce sustainability, migrant health, digital health and artificial intelligence, community-based care, climate and health, and evidence implementation. The UP JBI Centre could provide an important mechanism for translating research findings into clinical and educational practice.
Second, the Nursing Innovation and Research Fellowship. Each institution could nominate emerging nurse researchers, doctoral students, and early-career faculty for short-term reciprocal fellowships. Fellows would work with mentors from both institutions to develop a research proposal, systematic review, implementation project, publication, or innovation prototype. This would create a sustainable pipeline of internationally connected nurse scholars.
Third, a PolyU–UP Manila Nursing Futures Forum could be convened annually, alternating between Hong Kong and Manila. The Forum would bring together researchers, students, clinicians, policymakers, and healthcare leaders to examine emerging challenges confronting nursing and health systems in Asia. Selected projects could receive seed funding and mentoring for subsequent external grant applications.
Within the first two years, the Collaborative could target concrete outputs: three joint research projects, four co-authored publications, an annual Nursing Futures Forum, reciprocal faculty and student exchanges, six emerging-researcher fellowships, and at least one jointly developed external research grant application.
Importantly, the initiative should include an evaluation framework tracking publications, grants, mobility, researcher development, implementation outcomes, and community impact.
The renewed MoU therefore represents more than the continuation of a successful relationship. It offers an opportunity for PolyU and UP Manila to establish a flagship Hong Kong–Philippines nursing collaboration that generates evidence, develops future nurse leaders, translates knowledge into practice, and demonstrates how sustained university partnerships can contribute to stronger health systems across Asia.