Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) together with the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), the Program Management Unit for Human Resources & Institutional Development, Research and Innovation (PMU-B) and in collaboration with two Japanese research funding agencies namely Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) jointly host the 2022 Global Research Council Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting from 21st -23rd November 2022 in Bangkok.  For the first time, Thailand selected to be the host country of the GRC Asia Pacific Regional Meeting. A hundred of the global funding leaders from sixteen countries convene at this event. These include but not limited to Brazil, China, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, and Viet Nam. 

The goal of the meeting is to provide a platform where global funding leaders in particular from Asia-Pacific region could share and exchange their practice. The participants will go through the topics that arecarried out from the Global Research Council Annual General Meeting in Panama last June. These include the issues like the climate changes, impact oriented reward and recognition mechanism for researchers in particular during the post-COVID 19, and multilateral collaboration workstreams. As the national budget policy body to promote Thailand’s science, research, and innovation, TSRI together with NRCT, the current GRC Asia-Pacific Governing Board; and the PMU-B will assure that Thailand could plug in to their multilateral collaboration workstreams. 

At the meeting, his excellency Prof. Dr. Anek Laothamatas, Minister, Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation (MHESI) highlights the importance of how science, social science, and humanity should go in hand in hand to drive high-impact research. His highlight has touched on the Suvarnabhumi studies, one of the five pillars under the Thailand Academy of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts (TASSHA), funded mainly by NRCT. “Through the Suvarnabhumi Studies, it allows us to reconceive and find our history. Thailand's history could date back to 2,500-3,000 years ago, not 700 years, as we often see in high school textbooks. Without science and technology, it would have been impossible to trace back to where we were, said the Minister.

Another highlight that the Thai host demonstrated is a showcase of the Program Management Unit for Area-Based Development (PMU-A) that discusses the success of our funding scheme to promote the transdisciplinary research. PMU-A has partnered with universities, local administrative officers and other stakeholders to develop a culture-based economy, resulting in the creation of 6,000 cultural community enterprises, contributing to THB 200 million revenue to communities across the country. 

The input from this meeting will be shared and reported at the next Annual Meeting scheduled on May 29th – June 3rd, 2023 in the Netherlands. Thus, this GRC Asia Pacific Regional meeting becomes a good opportunity for the funding agencies and key stakeholders under our national science, research, and innovation ecosystem to learn and share our experiences with other member countries. After all, this could lead to a global policy framework resulting in higher-impact research in the future.

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