The Social Return on Investment of Young Scientist Competition (YSC): Thailand Case Study

Abstract

National Electronic Computer and Technology Center) NECTEC(has established the Young Scientist Competition (YSC) project that is an annual among science and technology student projects in Thailand for ten years. Over 600 projects per year are submitted to the competition. It focuses on development of young Thai students as it motivates their interests in science and technology, allows them to create innovation and engages them into learning science and technology outside classrooms. The young Thai scientists have been given opportunities to use scientific methods to solve real problems and learning based on team management. It expects an increase in the number of Thai scientists and the values of the research in the future. This paper aims to study the comprehensive impact evaluation for that project. We selected the Social Return on Investment) SROI(to evaluate the impact of the Young Scientist Competition project. The methods of study are based on in-depth interview, survey and brainstorming with stakeholders including students and teachers. Data are also provided by the organizer of the project. The result of paper demonstrates for every Baht invested effective in The Young Scientist Competition, there is a return of 11.04 Baht. This positive return on investment reflects projected come from values of the improving skills such as science and technology and management including to social skills. Finally, this paper offers the comprehensive social impact evaluation framework that includes a design of social outcome and financial proxy from the stakeholder and the secondary data sources.