The House committee’s about-turn followed a complaint from the office saying that the substantial cutback in the research funding would seriously affect research by about 250 universities and other research units across the country.
The office was originally allocated nearly 12.6 billion baht in funding for the 2020 fiscal year but, on December 4th, the House Budget Scrutiny Committee decided to slash that amount by eight billion baht, or 63.7% of the total funding.
Professor Dr. Sutthipant thanked the House committee for considering the office’s appeal, and other related agencies for providing the office with information to support it.
In the written appeal, the Office for the Committee for the Promotion of Science, Research and Innovations and the Thailand Centre of Excellence for Life Sciences said the research funding cuts would seriously affect investor confidence in the industrial sector, which relies heavily on high technology, and in the country’s competitiveness.
