270,000 researchers to drive innovation, industry

Thailand is marching toward innovation as it prepares to hire a raft of new researchers over the next two decades, according to plans announced yesterday.

The National Science Technology and Innovation Policy Office (NSTIPO) will increase the number of its researchers four-fold by 2036 to bolster innovation in industry, said its secretary-general Kitipong Promwong.

The agency has 89,617 full-time researchers, or 13.6 per 10,000 population. Just under 50 are state officials and the rest work for private companies.

Yet this number remains paltry in comparison to innovation-led countries such as South Korea, Singapore, Germany and Japan.

In terms of educational level, 61% of the NSTIPO researchers have master’s degrees and 32% have doctoral degrees. In contrast, only around 10% of researchers in the private sector are believed to hold master’s degrees.

Mr Kitipong said the new recruits would take the number of researchers to 60 for every 10,000 in the population.

“We want to achieve this goal as researchers are the key driving the country’s innovation economy in the future,” he said.

“Importantly, those researchers must be able to help business developers deal with obstacles to upgrading their products based on innovation and technology research and development.”

This is part of a broader human resources development agenda for research and innovation that was recently approved by the NSTIPO’s board, which is chaired by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.

According to the plan, this will upgrade the country’s ability to respond to the demands of the business sector, taking Thailand from No 57 on one metric to a projected 14th place.

It will also lure more international researchers to work in Thailand, again helping it jump up the ranking table in this area from 46th to 14th. The above rankings were categorised by the World Economic Forum.

The NSTIPO also plans to increase the percentage of skilled labourers from 13.8% of the work force in 2014 to 25% within 20 years.

Other goals include improving the ratio of pure science students to social science students from 33:67 in 2015 to 70:30 within 20 years.

The number of so-called “gifted” students represented less than 1% of Thailand’s collective student body in 2016 but plans now afoot should see this grow to 3% by the same deadline, Mr Kitipong said.