Govt-funded R&D projects to come under scrutiny
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Publicly funded research organisations will be soon be subject to close scrutiny as to whether their projects, from new breeds of rice through to innovative industrial products, are worthy of support from the taxpayer.
Each year, while the government spends about Bt10 billion to support research and development, and private firms spend about the same amount on R&D, there is no systematic measurement of the value of R&D projects, Soothiporn Chittmittrapap, secretary-general of the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), said yesterday.
The NRCT therefore plans to establish a formal evaluation system, which should tell whether public spending on research projects in areas such as rice, rubber and sugar cane is worth taxpayer support, he said.
Many universities run rice research projects with a combined budget of about Bt600 million to Bt700 million annually, but some may be pursuing work that is a waste of public funds, he said.
Research on rubber projects, meanwhile, is worth about Bt100 million a year, but Thailand, which is the world’s largest rubber exporter, still exports the commodity as a primary material, while only 15 per cent of overseas sales worth about Bt100 billion annually are industrial rubber products, he added.
A good evaluation system for research projects would lead to efficient annual budget allocation, as some projects that are unable to deliver good outcomes could get less support in later years, while more beneficial projects could receive more funding, Soothiporn said.
The NRCT is working out the framework of the measurement system with the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI).
Many state agencies review their own R&D projects, with the evaluation results not revealed to the public, said Somkiat Tangkitvanich, vice president of the TDRI.
He suggested there should be an independent body to audit R&D projects.
Somkiat, who leads a team of researchers studying how to build a suitable evaluation system, yesterday proposed measurement guidelines and indicators to a gathering of hundreds of researchers representing state agencies and universities.
The measurement indicators could include R&D impact on the economy, government policy or a change in public attitude, he said.
Another key issue is whether research projects are turned into patents, and the commercialisation of some products.
The first draft of the team’s study should be completed by September, he added.
Thailand lags behind many emerging and developed countries in terms of spending on R&D, which represents only 0.25 per cent of the Kingdom’s gross domestic product, compared with 2 per cent in South Korea.
