NRCT Code of Ethics & NECAST — Thailand

The National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) is best known internationally for its funding role — covered in CASRAI’s separate guide, NRCT: Thailand’s National Research Council and Its Funding Role. This guide covers a different part of NRCT’s mandate entirely: its Code of Ethics for Researchers, a national statement of individual research-conduct principles, and NECAST (the National Ethics Committee Accreditation System of Thailand), the institutional system NRCT uses to accredit and standardize research ethics committees (RECs) across Thai institutions. Neither is a funding mechanism, and an administrator evaluating a Thai research partnership needs both pieces — who is bound by what conduct standard, and whether the partner institution’s ethics review body is accredited — separately from the funding question.

Two Different Systems Under One National Body

NRCT operates both instruments, but they answer different questions:

The Code of Ethics for Researchers is a set of conduct principles addressed to individual researchers — honesty, originality, and proper acknowledgment of prior work among them — comparable in function to a national responsible-conduct-of-research (RCR) statement.
NECAST is an institutional accreditation and quality-assurance system for research ethics committees (RECs) — the Thai-context equivalent of what CASRAI’s glossary elsewhere covers as an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) — not a code of conduct for individuals.

Put simply: the Code of Ethics governs how a researcher is expected to behave; NECAST governs whether the committee reviewing that researcher’s human-subjects protocol meets a recognized quality standard. A page-for-page comparison of these two with the funding-focused NRCT guide would be redundant; this guide instead treats them as the integrity/compliance layer that sits alongside, not underneath, NRCT’s funding programs.

The NRCT Code of Ethics for Researchers

NRCT has promulgated a national code of ethics for researchers (in Thai, จรรยาบรรณนักวิจัย), reproduced and taught widely across Thai universities as a foundational research-ethics reference — copies are hosted and cited by institutions including Srinakharinwirot University and Mahasarakham University as standard course material for graduate researchers. The code is structured as a set of nine principles governing individual researcher conduct. Based on how Thai institutions consistently summarize and teach it, the principles cover ground that will be familiar to anyone who has worked with Western RCR frameworks: researcher honesty and academic integrity, avoiding plagiarism and properly acknowledging the work and sources of others, objectivity and freedom from bias in interpreting and reporting results, responsibility toward research subjects and the wider public, and exercising academic freedom in a way that remains accountable to those affected by the research.

This CASRAI guide does not reproduce the code’s nine principles verbatim clause-by-clause — the authoritative Thai-language text should be consulted directly for exact wording in any context where precise compliance language matters (for example, drafting a co-authored institutional MOU). The function the code serves, however, is clear and verifiable: it is NRCT’s baseline statement of what constitutes ethical conduct by a researcher, distinct from the separate question of ethics review of a research protocol, which is NECAST’s domain.

It is worth comparing this structurally to the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity and the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity — both are the same genre of document, a national or supranational statement of researcher-conduct principles rather than a regulatory enforcement mechanism in themselves. See CASRAI’s Research Integrity Fundamentals: FFP, RCR, and the Misconduct Process for how this category of document typically relates to formal misconduct definitions and investigation procedures.

NECAST: Accrediting Thailand’s Research Ethics Committees

NECAST — the National Ethics Committee Accreditation System of Thailand — is the mechanism NRCT uses to certify and supervise the quality of institutional research ethics committees across Thailand. Its stated purpose is to improve both the substantive and procedural quality of scientific and ethical review of research involving human participants, and to build the capacity of RECs to protect participant rights, safety, and welfare to a recognized standard. NRCT positions itself in this system as the promoter, supporter, developer, and supervisor of human-research standards nationally, rather than as the review body itself — the actual protocol-level review still happens at the institutional REC.

NRCT material describing the program notes that research ethics committees now exist at more than 200 institutions across Thailand, and that NECAST works alongside stakeholder networks such as the Federation of Ethics Review Committees in Thailand (FERCIT) to bring institutional review practice in line with recognized international standards for human-subjects protection.

For an international collaborator, NECAST accreditation status functions similarly to the role AAHRPP accreditation or Common Rule assurance status plays for a US IRB: it is a signal — not a guarantee — that a Thai partner institution’s REC has been externally evaluated against a defined quality standard, rather than being a purely self-certifying internal body. CASRAI’s comparison of IRB vs. Ethics Committee is a useful companion reference for administrators translating between US and non-US human-subjects-review terminology.

How the Two Pieces Interact in Practice

In a typical Thailand-linked human-subjects study, both layers apply at once and to different actors:

The individual researcher — Thai or foreign, if operating under a Thai institutional affiliation or NRCT-administered funding — is expected to conduct the work consistent with the Code of Ethics for Researchers.
The protocol itself is reviewed by an institutional REC, and the credibility of that review depends in part on whether the REC operates under NECAST accreditation.

Neither layer substitutes for the other, and neither substitutes for whatever separate ethics review a foreign partner institution’s own IRB or REC independently requires for a collaborative study — international collaborations involving Thai institutions typically still need review on both sides unless a formal reliance arrangement is in place, the same principle CASRAI covers generally in its glossary entry on reliance agreements (a US-context example of the same underlying mechanism).

What This Means for Research Administrators

Don’t conflate this with the funding guide. NRCT’s funding programs, eligibility rules, and its post-2019 role as Thailand’s primary research funder are a separate topic — see CASRAI’s NRCT funding overview for that side.
Ask specifically about NECAST accreditation status when evaluating a Thai partner institution’s REC for a collaborative human-subjects study, rather than assuming an REC’s existence implies an equivalent quality bar to an AAHRPP-accredited or Common-Rule-assured US IRB.
Treat the Code of Ethics as the individual-conduct layer — relevant to authorship, data handling, and originality expectations for any researcher operating under NRCT funding or Thai institutional affiliation — separately from protocol-level ethics review.
Verify exact provisions from the primary Thai-language text (or an institution-provided official translation) before citing specific clauses in a formal document such as an MOU, data-sharing agreement, or misconduct policy cross-reference — this guide describes the code’s function and general scope, not a verbatim translation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the NRCT Code of Ethics for Researchers legally binding?

It functions as a national ethical standard promoted by NRCT and widely adopted as baseline teaching material by Thai universities, in the same genre as the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity — a statement of professional conduct principles rather than a criminal or civil statute in itself. Institution-specific misconduct policies, and any funding-agreement terms that incorporate it by reference, are what typically give it enforceable teeth in a given case.

What does NECAST actually accredit?

NECAST accredits and supervises institutional research ethics committees (RECs) — the bodies that review individual human-subjects research protocols — rather than accrediting individual researchers or research projects directly.

How is NECAST different from an IRB?

NECAST is not itself a review committee; it is the national accreditation system that evaluates RECs (Thailand’s equivalent of IRBs) against a quality standard. An individual Thai REC, not NECAST, is what actually reviews a specific protocol — see CASRAI’s IRB vs. Ethics Committee comparison for the terminology mapping.

Does this replace the need for review by a foreign partner institution’s own IRB?

No. Absent a formal reliance agreement between the two institutions, a collaborative study involving both a Thai institution and a foreign partner typically still requires independent ethics review on each side.

Where does this fit relative to CASRAI’s existing NRCT guide?

CASRAI’s other NRCT guide, NRCT: Thailand’s National Research Council and Its Funding Role, covers NRCT’s funding programs and its 2019 reform into Thailand’s primary funding agency. This guide covers a distinct part of NRCT’s mandate — researcher conduct standards and REC accreditation — that guide does not address.

NRCT’s Code of Ethics for Researchers and NECAST: Thailand’s Research-Integrity Framework