Development of an electronic research portal in Papua New Guinea

BACKGROUND

The WHO Papua New Guinea Country Office is supporting Papua New Guinea to accelerate progress towards the achievement of universal health coverage, and as a consequence, supporting strengthening of health information systems, monitoring and evaluation, and research capacity and governance. A key focus is developing local capacity to undertake high quality research and link research with policymaking.

The Performance, Management and Research Branch (PMRB) at the Papua New Guinea National Department of Health (NDoH) is responsible for coordinating research in the health sector by serving as the Secretariat for the Medical Research Advisory Council (MRAC), and leading development of the National Health Research Policy and the National Health and HIV Research Agenda. MRAC acts as the National Ethical Clearance Committee for all health and medical related research, reviewing and approving research proposals involving human participants. Presently, PMRB maintains a database of past and current research proposals in an Access Database with limited functionality. All documentation related to research proposals and for review by the MRAC are otherwise maintained as hard copies. This limits the efficiency of the Secretariat in tracking research in the country, as well as access to information for wider stakeholders on health research. As such, the World Health Organization (WHO) will be supporting the NDoH to put into place a functional, electronic research portal.

PURPOSE/SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE OF THE ACTIVITY

The objective of the proposed Agreement for Performance of Work (APW) is to develop an electronic research portal for the National Department of Health (NDoH) of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The contractor will develop an integrated online health research management system that will allow all stakeholders in health research to access information on ongoing research, and support streamlining of the ethics review process. The portal will enable researchers to submit proposals for ethical review, and members of the Medical Research Advisory Council (MRAC) of Papua New Guinea to review and decide on proposals submitted.

DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES TO BE CARRIED OUT

Under the guidance of the Technical Officer, Strategic Health Information, the contractor will develop a functional, online health research portal that will meet the needs of different types of users of health research in Papua New Guinea. The portal will be based on the research portal developed by the IT Unit of the WHO Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO), with additional features added (see Annex for features to be added). The research portal for PNG will allow: (1) researchers to submit research proposals, (2) the general public and interested stakeholders to search ongoing and completed health research, access completed research reports and research related guidelines and policies, and (3) PMRB to manage research proposal reviews and approvals by the MRAC.

METHODS TO CARRY OUT THE ACTIVITY

The company/institution will:

• • Develop the research portal using the portal developed by WHO WPRO as a basis (this will include testing of the portal prior to finalization and then revisions as needed);
• • Identify a cloud server which includes maintenance for hosting the portal and organize hosting of the portal on the server for one year;
• • Register the domain of the portal, ensure it has a SSL certificate and that logins for users have a captcha system;
• • Develop a user guide for the portal; and
• • Provide training to the ERC Secretariat, MRAC members, and IT Unit of the NDoH on how to use and maintain the portal.

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Education required (for the team members at the company/institution)

Essential: Degree in computer science, computer engineering, or other information technology related degree

Experience required

Essential: More than 5 years of professional work experience in the ICT field, developing, designing and administering websites and database systems

Desirable: Experience working on development of health-related database systems

Skills/technical skills and knowledge

Essential:

• • Must be proficient in Visual Studio C# programming language using MS SQL database
• • Must be skilled in developing web application using Angular JS, Kendo UI and Bootstrap
• • Must have knowledge on designing and managing websites
• • Have a good communication and programming skills
• • Has the initiative and willingness to learn and share ideas

Languages

Excellent English written skills and spoken fluency is essential

Competencies

• • Communicating in a credible and effective way
• • Producing results
• • Ensuring the effective use of resources
• • Knowing and managing yourself

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Place of assignment

The contractual partner will perform offsite. Communication will be through phone calls, exchange of emails and online meetings.

Contract duration

2 months

SUBMISSIONS

Qualified and interested specialists should submit the following documents to the Supply Officer through WP RO UNGM at < wproungm@who.int > by 15 June 2022

• • Company Profile {for institutional applications} or CVs of team members
• • Cover letter. The cover letter should outline how their experience and qualifications make them a suitable candidate for this bid.
• • Proposal indicating solution, methodology, timelines and cost

Please use Tender Notice No. 175134 as subject to all submission. Only successful candidates will be contacted.

Last day of receiving queries for this tender is on 8 June 2022