Thailand Science Research and Innovation Promotion (TSRI) recently organized the first 2023 Science and Technology Organization Forum (STO Forum 8). Executives from 12 science, research and innovation related organizations were invited to participate and share their opinion. Dr. Nirawat Thammajak, Director of TSRI’s Science and Technology Development Subdivision (O-Science), gave a briefing on the work of in his division. Meanwhile, Dr. Rerngchai Tansuchart gave a presentation on enhancing science, research and innovation (SRI) agencies to meet the country’s targets and stay competitive internationally.
Dr. Pongpan Kaewtatip. Vice President of TSRI, said that TSRI has organized the STO Forum continuously and this was the eighth in the series. The objective was to set a joint goals and directions together with Thailand’s SRI agencies to further strengthen the SRI system. TSRI has gathered all the opinions, which would be considered and comply with its strategy and SRI strategic plan in 2013-2017 under the 3rd pillar: Technologies and Innovations for Future Industries and the 4th pillar: Enhancement of Human Capitals as Researchers, Scientists and Innovators.
Dr. Nirawat said that the objective of the STO Forum is to build the mutual understanding among TSRI and Thailand’s SRI agencies. TSRI proposed the committee to revise the restriction of the Fundamental Fund (FF) on the expense for equipment’s from not exceeding 10% of the TSRI’s overall budget to not exceeding 20%. TSRI also proposed to track the budget payment, verify the import of the data into the National Research and Innovation Information System (NRIIS). and communicate the highlight of its works which would be considered by the Bureau of Budget for the budget allocation and by the Lower House of Representatives for the Science Research and Innovation System Fund. In this part, TSRI requested cooperation from every related agencies in the preparation of the highlights of SRI Fund achievements for the budget preparation and consideration season.
Dr. Rerngchai briefed the meeting on the findings of his research project on the success factors of the world-class science and technology organizations, which would be used for designing the mechanism that keeps the Thai science and technology institutes stay competitive in the international level. The research included the Result Benchmarking, comparing and analyzing cost and products with other organizations, and Practice Benchmarking, focusing on qualitative data to have better understanding about all activities run by human resources, processes and technology and figure out the best approach to improve them. As the chief of this research project, he and TSRI would gather all the suggestions from the forum to improve the research before utilizing it for further development of the Science Research and Technology system.
