Background

The world around us is changing faster than ever before.  It is changing politically, socially technologically, economically as well as environmentally.  This is a significant challenge for citizens to deal with, including our people in Southeast Asian Countries.  Southeast Asian Countries have been thriving to enhance the capacity of its human resources to sustain social and economic growth according to national requirements and context.  Blueprints and reforms have been planned and implemented through a series of programmes and activities.  Policymakers, as well as implementers, need relevant data to have an immediate and opposite decision.  However, in many cases, the key information is not always available due to a lack of policy research.  Moreover, without relevant policy research, the development can be misdirected and might not obtain the expected outcomes.

With the diverse expertise established and accumulated in its Centre located across Southeast Asia, SEAMEO units take on a significant role to be the regional think tanks to leverage the holistic development of human resources in the region.  In achieving this, SEAMEO units need to be proactively conducting reliable and valid research which aligns with, if not leads, development trends.  This can be fulfilled through the SEAMEO Centres Policy Research Network (SEAMEO CPRN).

The SEAMEO CPRN was firstly introduced as a component of the SEAMEO College, a project launched in 2013.  The Network is established to enhance the relevance and sharpen the responsiveness of SEAMEO Centres and the Secretariat to the needs of education leaders for policy research to address regional human resource development issues in Southeast Asia.  The Network then was formally established in March 2016, during the workshop at the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) hosted a workshop entitled the Establishment of SEAMEO Centres Policy Research Network (CPRN) at College, Los Baños in the Philippines. 

SEAMEO Centre Directors 2017 meeting concurred on the SEAMEO Secretariat to create the task force of the SEAMEO CPRN.  As a result, SEAMEO Secretariat organised the first meeting of the SEAMEO Centres Policy Research Network (SEAMEO CPRN) Taskforce on 22-23 February 2018, at Windsor Suites & Convention Hotel in Bangkok Thailand.  The outputs were the draft of the Terms of Reference (TOR) and the Action Plan (2018-2020).  Later in July 2018, the SEAMEO Centre Directors meeting 2018 took note and agreed with SEAMEO Secretariat to lead the development of the Centres Policy Research Network for its first three years.  SEAMEO Secretariat organised the SEAMEO CPRN Symposium on 30-31 January 2019 to update trends on policy research, share ongoing activities with the Centres, and plan the activities up to the Year 2023.

The year 2020 however was a year of pandemic.  The world transformed right away from lockdown to digital platforms.  Ministries of Education and the world faced different issues as well as challenges.  As we journey towards the new normal, SEAMEO Secretariat convenes the SEAMEO CPRN Virtual Summit on March 10, 2021 in Bangkok, Thailand and back to back with the First CHEVRON- SEAMEO Research Workshop for Strengthening Regional STEM Education in Southeast Asia on 11 and 12 March 2021 as the platform for SEAMEO Centres/Network to update trends on policy research, share ongoing activities with the other Centres, and revisit activities plan agreed in last SEAMEO CPRN Symposium in 2019.