25
Jan

The Prince Mahidol Award Foundation under the Royal Patronage was established in commemoration of the centenary of the birth of His Royal Highness Prince Mahidol of Songkla on 1 January 1992.  The Foundation is under the Royal Patronage, with Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn as President. The Foundation annually confers two Prince Mahidol Awards upon individual(s) or institution(s), who have demonstrated outstanding and exemplary contributions to the advancement of the world’s medical and public health services. In the past 30 years, the Prince Mahidol Award has been conferred to 90 individuals, groups of individuals, and institutions.

Two committees are responsible for selecting candidates for the award from nomination of individuals and/or organizations from around the world.

The first group of the committee is the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), which initially reviews all nominations nominated for that year. SAC members will select the strong candidates, called a shortlist. Each strong nominee will be assigned to an expert who will be providing the recommendations to be presented to the International Awards Committee (IAC). The pre-selection of awardees is made through open discussions among members of the IAC. It is important to obtain as much information as possible about the candidate before the decision is made. The final decision on the award is made by the Board of Trustees, chaired by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. It has been raised whether the SAC and IAC members should further define the selection process to make the awards highly honorable.

In addition, health education is often involved in both fields of the awards, medical and public health. Some pioneers in this area may not be recognized. This will be the discussion agenda for the committees to discuss and whether the guidelines or criteria on health education should be established for consideration.

(Participation is by invitation only)