HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn on Monday visited the “Thailand-UK Science and Innovation Partnership” exhibition, held at the British Embassy in Bangkok and showcasing the achievements of the countries’ academic partnership.

British Ambassador Mark Kent remarked at the opening ceremony that the UK was maintaining its focus on science, technology and innovation advancement as the country believed that science and innovation could be the solution finder for global challenges, which made it important to exchange knowledge with partner countries.

“The UK also recognises the importance of international collaboration. Opportunities to work with the best individuals and organisations in the world increase the impact of research and foster innovation. This leads to benefits both for the UK and for our partner countries,” he said.

From the Thai side, Science and Technology Minister Pichet Durongkaveroj said Thailand also considered science and technology as being at the heart of the strategies to develop the country.

“Thailand and the UK both see the mutual benefit from international collaboration, because the countries’ big problems relate to international problems. Therefore, the alliance on innovation, science and technology research with the UK is an opportunity for both countries to share knowledge together,” the minister said.

The key piece of academic collaboration presented at the exhibition was the Newton UK-Thailand Research and Innovation Partnership Fund.

Kent said that since its official start in January last year, the programme had shown good progress in regard to strengthening Thailand’s science and innovation capacity, and enhancing the research ability of the two nations.

The overall Newton Fund is a five-year academic collaboration between the UK and 15 partner countries, including Thailand.

It has at least 20 million pounds (Bt1 billion) over the length of the programme to support science and innovation research, fellowships, PhD scholarships and mobility schemes.

Andrew Glass, British Council Thailand country director, described the Newton Fund as a true partnership between two countries, as both sides contribute the equivalent of 2 million pounds per year for five years.

“One concrete example of the collaboration is the research in partnership between Thai and British researchers on the widespread liver cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, in the Northeast of Thailand. It will need international collaboration to study and solve this issue,” he said.

The Newton Fund not only covers research in pure science, as it also grants support for social-science research, he added.

On another research partnership between the Kingdom and the UK, Asst Prof Direk Limmathurotsakul, of Mahidol University’s Southeast Asia Infectious Clinical Research Network, said Mahidol and Oxford University had been working in collaboration since 1979 to enhance the research capacity on both sides.

“We are focusing on learning together and aiming to produce researches that have a great impact and can change the world,” he said.

“One of our latest pieces of study is the research on global distribution prediction of a highly pathogenic bacterium, Burkholderia pseudomallei, which causes melioidosis, and the research found that the disease is severely underreported in 45 countries. This global-scale research cannot be done without the collaboration from our British partner,” he stressed.

There were also showcases at the exhibition of other examples of the mutual science and innovation partnership between the two countries, such as the SCG-Oxford Centre of Excellence for Chemistry and the Thailand-UK Astronomy and Astrophysics Collaboration.