NXPO recently organized a meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee on Ecosystem Promotion and Revision of Laws and Regulations. Established by the National Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation Policy Council (Policy Council) on 17 September 2020, this ad-hoc committee is chaired by Prof. Dr. Anek Laothamatas, Minister of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) with NXPO President serving as the committee secretary.
In this meeting, the committee reviewed actions proposed by NXPO to promote the establishment of holding company by universities and research institutes. The actions include: 1) developing guiding principles for establishing a holding company, 2) allowing universities to invest in innovation businesses with their revenues, 3) revising university regulations in order to promote innovation businesses, and 4) encouraging university researchers to take their innovations to market via spinoff/startup policy.
The meeting also reviewed the 2027 Innovation Ecosystem Framework formulated by NXPO. The framework sets the targets for R&D expenditures to reach 2% of GDP and to have additional 1,000 IDEs (Innovation Driven Enterprises) achieving 1 billion THB in sales by 2027. The following mechanisms were proposed to boost the number of IDEs: 1) IDE Accelerators such as regional science parks and a holding company scheme; 2) Regional Innovation Economic Corridors such as EEC-A (Eastern Economic Corridor of Aviation), EECi (Eastern Economic Corridor of Innovation), EECd (Digital Park Thailand), EECmd (medical center) and EEC Genomics; 3) Strengthening strategic sectors such as EV, wellness and medical, food and agriculture; 4) Supporting programs such as Thailand Business Innovation Research (TBIR), Thailand Tech-Transfer Research (TTTR), Innovation Fund and Thai Bayh Dole Act. The committee suggested additional mechanisms to foster the IDE growth such as building collaboration between universities and enterprises both domestically and internationally, establishing financial packages and prioritizing issues.
