The SDG-Foresight project for the Thailand SRI Strategic Plan

From March to June 2020, SDG Move undertook policy-focused research for Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI), an organization under the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation. It was the analysis of data and the design of future scenarios to support the science research and innovation plan. TSRI wants this development plan to be the catalyst of change that would steer Thailand to progress more sustainably and inclusively along the line of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The research was conducted at two levels, namely national and regional level. Foresight (i.e. Horizon Scanning and Delphi) was used as the research methodology. Data collection was conducted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the national level, the SDG Move research team did the horizon scanning by reviewing secondary data related to all SDGs from national and international data source, as well as scanning social signals appearing in social medias and news. Then 60 experts were selected and asked to do adapted Delphi surveys. The surveys were conducted two rounds. The first round was to verify the critical sustainability issues found from the Horizon Scanning. The second round was to prioritize the issues, using two main criteria namely the level of importance and the level of policy readiness.

Moreover, SDG Move also worked with 6 regional teams, using the same methodology, to obtain each region’s crucial sustainability challenges, as well as to assess knowledge stock and gap for these challenges. The findings were used as inputs for TSRI strategic plan for budget year 2021.

Please see the report here:

SDG Move phase II

SDG Move, under Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, was operating as a Strategic Research Issue (SRI) Unit number 14 on SDGs for Thailand Research Fund (TRF), one of the largest granting agency at the time. The role for SDG Move as SRI unit was to follow the implementation and academic progress regarding SDGs both at national and global level, and specify areas in which TRF should grant research fund.

In the period between 2018-2019, SDG Move focused the areas of research grant on the theme of Localizing SDGs as well as base-line research on SDG 3, 6, 10, 11 and 17. It also analyzed the Thailand Science Research and Innovation (TSRI) strategic plan for budget year 200 against the SDGs. It is found that the TSRI strategic plan for budget year 2020 was quite imbalance as the plan was focusing on economic policies.

Please more details on SDG Move here, and its official website here.

Please the report of SDG Move phase II here: