Sasin Visiting Professor and Senior Research Fellow, Professor Sirimon Treepongkaruna, Ph.D., was recently awarded The Thailand Research Fund (TRF) Research Team Promotion Grant from the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT). “I feel honored and privileged because only a few people in my field get this award,” said Professor Sirimon, who has more than twenty years of experience in academic research and teaching in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. The six million baht TRF grant is to “provide support to distinguished senior researchers who have shown ability, integrity, and excellence, and are well-known in his/her research area.” Professor Sirimon explained that the grant’s objective is to promote a research culture in Thailand. She will mentor junior researchers in Thai communities, training young academics to publish top-tier journals. “With such a great honor comes exceptional responsibilities,” she said. The grant requires Professor Sirimon, as Chief Investigator (CI), to produce fifteen research papers within three years and mentor junior researchers to help them publish and promote their own academic papers. Professor Sirimon has more than 80 published papers on finance, accounting, and business. She has also moved into the field of sustainability and corporate governance and published research on sustainable development using the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. “I am proud of that research paper because we applied the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy of our late King Rama IX. We found that firms that practice the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy perform better than firms that don’t use that philosophy,” she said. Professor Sirimon leads a research team of Ph.D. students from Sasin School of Management – Pochara Arayakarnkul, and Pongsapak Chindasombatcharoen. The research team also consists of young academics like Assistant Professor Suparatana Tanthanongsakkun and Assistant Professor Tanakorn Likitapiwat from Chulalongkorn University. From Thammasat University is Assistant Professor Chaiyuth Padungsaksawasde and from Pennsylvania State University is Professor Pornsit Jiraporn. The first research paper to be published is on Military Board Connection and Compensation in Large Firms by Pochara Arayakarnku.