PMU-B Frontier Brainpower and Future Industries

PMU-B e-Asia Joint Research Programme (e-Asia JRP)

Supports Thai and ASEAN researchers through PMU-B with regional partners on joint innovation projects across disciplines.

PMU-B (Program Management Unit for Human Resources and Institutional Development, Research and Innovation), a Thai government program management unit under the Research and Innovation Acceleration Agency, administers the Thai side of the e-Asia Joint Research Programme (e-Asia JRP) — a multilateral ASEAN research cooperation framework. Thai-side awards provide up to 5,000,000 THB per project over a fixed 36-month project period. The current thematic focus spans infectious disease, climate-related diseases, and AI in personalized medicine. Partner-country funding is handled separately by each country's national research agency; the Thai award covers only the Thai team's costs.

Eligibility on the Thai side requires a university or qualified research organization as the lead applicant; for-profit companies are not eligible as leads. A joint research partner from another e-Asia JRP member country is a hard requirement — this is not a Thai-only or bilateral program, but a multilateral ASEAN call. Individual researchers affiliated with eligible institutions may also participate. Projects are 36 months in duration with no stated flexibility. Applications are submitted through PMU-B's funding portal at www.pmu-hr.or.th, and active call windows are published there; PMU-B has issued both a 2025 and a 2026 call cycle.

Strong applications identify a concrete research problem within one of the declared thematic areas, pair a Thai principal investigator with a named e-Asia JRP partner-country researcher, and demonstrate complementary capabilities across both teams. PMU-B also jointly administers the JST-NEXUS bilateral biotechnology program with Japan's JST, which follows a parallel but separate process. Applicants should check the PMU-B funding page for current open call announcements, as call windows change each cycle. Contact: +66-2-109-5432 ext. 845, Bangkok.