6. Research Engagement

Engagement with the wider research community — through the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN) and related fora — is a useful proxy for how closely each NREN is tied into the regional and global research ecosystem. This section draws on participation records for eight APAN meetings (APAN 47 and 48, then APAN 55 through 60) and on a self-reported profile of participants’ skill levels. The main points are:

• Engagement is broad but uneven. Twenty economies took part across the tracked meetings, but a handful — Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Pakistan and Nepal — account for most of the participation.
• Meeting size swings with the host. Turnout peaked at 357 at APAN 55 in Kathmandu and eased to 131 at APAN 60; the local host fields the largest contingent — Pakistan supplied 150 of the 196 participants when it hosted APAN 58 in Islamabad.
• The pandemic years are a gap. No participation is recorded for APAN 49–54, the period of virtual meetings, so the series jumps from 2020 to 2023.
• The skills picture splits by training need. Reading each economy’s self-reported mix, beginner-heavy communities (≥ 40% beginners) point to basic training and intermediate-heavy ones (≥ 40% intermediate) to advanced training, while an expert-heavy mix (≥ 40% experts) marks a mature base.

6.1 Engagement across the community

Counting participation across the eight tracked meetings, Japan (341), Thailand (ThaiREN, 256) and South Korea (KOREN / KREONET, 210) are the most engaged, followed by Pakistan (PERN, 190), Nepal (NREN, 171) and Sri Lanka (LEARN, 135), with Malaysia (MYREN, 102) close behind. Both Thailand and Pakistan owe their standing largely to hosting — Thailand fielded 171 participants as host of APAN 57 in Bangkok, and Pakistan 150 as host of APAN 58 in Islamabad — in contrast with the steady, broad-based engagement of Japan and South Korea. A long tail of economies — from China (CERNET) and Hong Kong (HARNET) down to Afghanistan (AfgREN) and New Zealand (REANNZ) — take part more occasionally.

6.2 Participation over time

Meeting by meeting, attendance is volatile. It ran at 300 and 207 for APAN 47 and 48, jumped to a peak of 357 at APAN 55 (Kathmandu, 2023), dipped to 165 at APAN 56, rebounded to 304 at APAN 57 (Bangkok, 2024), then ran at 196 and 263 for APAN 58 and 59 before easing to its lowest, 131, at APAN 60. The APAN 57 and APAN 58 peaks are both host-driven — Thailand fielded 171 participants in Bangkok and Pakistan 150 in Islamabad. The gap between APAN 48 and 55 reflects the pandemic-era meetings (APAN 49–54), which are not in the dataset.

Much of this volatility is a host effect. The largest single-meeting contingents line up with the host or a nearby economy — South Korea at APAN 47, Nepal’s striking surge at APAN 55 in Kathmandu, Thailand’s 171 as host of APAN 57 in Bangkok, Pakistan’s 150 as host of APAN 58 in Islamabad, and Japan at APAN 59 — so each meeting tends to be led by a different community.

6.3 Skills and capacity development

Beyond headcount, participating economies were asked to describe the skill mix of their community as the share of expert, intermediate and beginner practitioners. Treating this self-reported profile with caution, a simple reading sorts each community by where the weight of its mix sits: a profile with at least 40% beginners points to basic, foundational training, while one with at least 40% intermediate practitioners points to high-level, advanced training that can lift that middle tier toward expert. A community with at least 40% experts — and fewer than 40% in each of the other two bands — is taken to have a mature expert base. Economies whose NRENs returned no usable 2025 expertise profile are left unassessed.

On that reading, the sixteen economies with a usable 2025 profile sort by training need. Four — Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Mongolia — are beginner-heavy and point to basic, foundational training, while six — Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — are intermediate-heavy, where high-level training would help lift that middle tier toward expert; Bhutan and Laos qualify on both counts. The remaining four — Malaysia, Nepal, South Korea and Sri Lanka — already report a mature expert base. Four engaged economies are left unassessed: Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Japan (whose participating NREN, MAFFIN, did not complete the questionnaire) and New Zealand returned no usable 2025 expertise profile. The map locates where each kind of capacity-building would do the most good.