1. Background

Since the beginning, the health research activities were undertaken by the Council of Medical Sciences (CMS), which was established in December of 1989 by the Prime Minister Council and started its activities two years later after the nomination of its executive board. The CMS was recognized as a technical consultative body for the Ministry of Health on management of research, sciences and technology, standard of hygiene, disease prevention and health promotion, curative care and rehabilitation, food and drug, medical equipment, and human resources for health in particular human resources for research. It is a national focal point for promoting, coordinating, and conducting research activities within the country and in cooperation with foreign countries.

According to the demand of concretizing of tasks, the establishment of the National Institute of Public Health (NIOPH) 2 in 1999, it was merging the research activities of the Council of Medical Sciences, and the training activities of the School of Public Health. Thus, the National Institute of Public Health is supposed to be a macro technical body of the Ministry of Health (MOH), which is a national focal point for promoting, supporting, coordinating, and implementing health research activities, health policies and research ethics development. In addition, the NIOPH conducts in-country postgraduate training, upgrading health staff in their relevant technical areas nationwide, and cooperates with foreign partner institutions. The NIOPH coordinates directly on the training plan with the Department of Organization and Personnel of the Ministry of Health, and have a close cooperationship with the Francophony Institute for Tropical Medicine in Vientiane, and also plays as collaborating body for the Council of Medical Sciences of the Ministry of Health.

It is noted that the MOH strategy was and is implementing through the six main work plans such as health promotion and disease prevention, curative and rehabilitation, provision of essential drug and protection of consumers right, human resources for health development, health research and training management, health economic and administration work plans. Therefore, the fifth work plan on health research and training management was and is under the direct responsibility of the NIOPH in collaboration with the CMS. The first five year national health research master plan (NHRMP) was launched in 1992-1996 with the technical support from the Faculty of Public Health, Mahidol University , Thailand , and financial support from IDRC-Canada, aiming to build the research capacity in Lao PDR. At the end of the year 1996, the evaluation of the implementation of the first five year NHRMP was conducted, which gave a basic information for the development of the second five year NHRMP (1997-2001) according to the six main work plan of the MOH, with aiming to continue on building and strengthening of health research capacity within country.

At the end of the year 2001, under the technical support from Faculty of Public Health MU and Public Health College of Chulalongkorn University of Thailand, with financial support of the European Commission through Regional Malaria Control Program in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, the evaluation of the second five year national health research master plan was conducted. The results of which was a basic for developing the third five year national health research master plan (2002-2006) with focusing on the strengthening of health research capacity according to a new paradigm declared at the International Conference held in Bangkok in the year 2000, which fostered the health research process around the world, to review the implementation of health research plan globally, directing to bridge the 10/90 gaps (stated by the commission on health research for development in the 1990).more information