Page 39 - The lraternational Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand.indd

The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XV-2023

To address this situation, the ADB has supported the creation of a Competitive
Research Fund, which has supported 44 research projects carried out by the early
and mid-career staff of UHS, Lao PDR. The setup of this CRF included also a capacity-
building package via workshops, and mentoring by senior researchers. The CRF
implementation has been a complex endeavor, as it required the management of

44 different research contracts (with individual Pas), which needed to be aligned with
the requirements from both ADB and the UHS. As such, it required a joint collaborative
effort from the organizing team and resources experts. As shown in this analysis,

the CRF theme has proven to be successful in terms of the disbursement of grants by
donors and is an effective conduit of research funds to grant recipients.

In consistent with UHS priorities, CRF research projects prioritized young and
mid-career researchers, the research projects were fairly well distributed across a broad
range of UHS faculties, signifying non-bias of grant distribution. The majority of

projects (91%) focus on risk or service assessments, addressing health hazards and
health services. Over one-third of the projects addressed communicable diseases
(38.6%) and/or maternal and child health issues (36.3%), and projects prioritized
the identification of solutions, to improve service delivery. Given their practical
focus, these projects will help better under health hazards, and identify the solutions

to healthcare delivery challenges in Lao PDR.

This analysis of the CRF awards suggests that, when coupled with coaching
and workshops, competitive research funds can be an efficient way to build research
capacity in low- and middle-income countries. To this end, countries can depend
on South-South collaboration, both from academics from neighboring countries

(i.e. Thailand) and Western academics residing in-situ (in this case, Lao PDR).
The collaboration amongst institutions is also key since, as reflected in this case,
which involved managing 44 different research contracts, the administrative and

financial requirements can be complex. By addressing these challenges, developing
countries can significantly improve their research capacity, and improve their
health services over the long run.

About the Authors

Sasithon Pukrittayakamee is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Thailand and an
Emeritus Professor of Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University. Her clinical
research background is tropical diseases focusing on malaria, influenza, Covid-19,

and control of malaria in Thailand and neighboring countries. She is working in
collaboration with the Mahidol-Oxford Research Unit, University of Oxford.

Sasithon Pukrittayakamee et al. 31