Hevea Research Platform in Partnership, a week of exchanges and field visits in Thailand on the occasion of its external evaluation

The HRPP was established in 2008. It is the result of a long-standing collaboration between CIRAD and its Thai partners (Kasetsart University, KU; Prince of Songkla University, PSU and the Rubber Authority of Thailand, RAOT), which was developed as part of a project supported since 1998 by the Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA) and the French Embassy in Thailand.

The objective of the HRPP is to strengthen scientific activities on natural rubber-based agrosystems through the implementation of joint research activities, academic training and capacity building, communication and partnership development. Mobilising multidisciplinary, multi-partner (public/private) and multinational (France, Thailand, Cambodia) teams, the HRPP aims to address the main challenges of the rubber sector, from seed to rubber ball.

An international team of three experts, Prof. Jitladda Sakdapipanich (Rubber Research Group, Mahidol University, Thailand), Dr. Gerhard Langenberger (Initiative for Sustainable Agricultural Supply Chains, German Agency for International Cooperation, GIZ) and Dr. Uhendi Haris (Rubber Association of Indonesia, GAPKINDO), met in Thailand to assess the functioning of the platform, its scientific activities and its contribution to national and regional capacity building.

The evaluation programme alternated between classroom presentations and visits to laboratories (Laboratory of Biochemistry and Technology of Natural Rubber, Kasetsart University, Bangkok; latex diagnostic laboratory at the Sithiporn Kridakorn station of Kasetsart University, Bangburd) and experimental sites (Chachoengsao Rubber Research Center of the Rubber Authority of Thailand; Sithiporn Kridakorn station of Kasetsart University, Bangburd) where HRPP teams conduct their research. A Natural Rubber Innovation Research Institute (NR-IRI) set up by Prince of Songkla University (Hat Yai campus) and focused on the development of natural rubber-based finished products was also visited. 

During this week of evaluation, the three experts also had the opportunity to interview individually (in person or online) more than twenty partners involved in the platform (public and private partners, HRPP alumni, French, Thai and also Cambodian partners, the Cambodian Rubber Research Institute being the first non-French or non-Thai associate member of the platform).

All this gave the evaluators a global vision of the platform, its functioning, activities and results. An evaluation report is expected in the coming weeks with recommendations that should allow the HRPP to strengthen itself.