The four key ministries tackling the country's economic problems are getting only 0.2% of the state's research budget in 2015, the Thailand Development and Research Institute (TDRI) says.
The Commerce, Finance, Labour and Tourism ministries were allotted only 41 million baht in total for research in various fields of work, said Yongyuth Chalamwong, TDRI Labour Development Research director.
Labour received 2,200,000 baht, Commerce 7,140,000 baht, Finance 9,880,000 baht, and Tourism 22,490,000 baht, according to a study looking at state budget allowances for 2015 by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT).
This means the four ministries have to depend solely on the experience and intellect of their officials rather than on evidence-based research to confront major problems facing the country, Mr Yongyuth said.
"This raises doubts about how efficiently they can work, and the obvious answer is that they cannot be as efficient as they should be," he said.
He said the situation is untenable because the Commerce Ministry deals with billions of baht in foreign and domestic trade, the Tourism and Sports Ministry generates billions in revenue from tourist sites, and the Labour Ministry must take care of more than 40 million people in the workforce.
"Either these ministries have no interest in raising their efficiency to tackle economic problems, or they can draw on their own research funds without having to depend on those given by the state," he said.
But Mr Yongyuth doubts they have carved out research funding from their own revenues.
"I am quite certain these organisations choose to work on the basis of civil servants' experience. It's merely good luck if they get quality results and they are able to advance their missions," he said.
The NRCT's study showed the courts obtained the least research funding, with just 1.5 million baht in 2015, which is 0.01% of this year's national budget for research. A total of 11,690,000 baht was allocated to independent and constitutional agencies.
Mr Yongyuth called on all ministries, especially these four key ministries, to prioritise research and come up with more money to carry it out.
"They could benefit from more extensive research to find solutions to difficulties facing the nation," he said. "It's important that we rely on evidence."