Mapping Research and Innovation in Lao People’s Democratic Republic is the seventh of a series ofcountry profiles prepared by UNESCO’s Global Observatory of Science, Technology and InnovationPolicy Instruments (GOSPIN). The series is designed to expose – through the rigorous application ofan assessment lens—usable insights about science, technology and innovation (STI) policies and theircontext. The GOSPIN programme is helping Member States to reform and upgrade national innovationsystems and governance. It promotes building capacity to monitor and evaluate the policy performance,through a structural analysis (covering the explicit policy, the STI national ecosystem, the legal frameworkand operational policy instruments), because such analysis points to implicit policies and gaps, and situatesthe performance of Lao PDR’s policy. In this way, the scope of standard STI assessment can be widened,to consider country-specific contexts, as well as emerging knowledge of technological advances thatcontribute to sustainable development. While complementing efforts to promote evidence-based STIpolicy-making as well as efforts to evaluate policy performance, GOSPIN offers a good baseline for thepromotion of scientific and technological foresight studies.The present country profile is the result of a collaboration process initiated by UNESCO through its fieldoffice at Bangkok and its Division of Science Policy and Capacity Building at Headquarters, joined bythe Ministry of Science and Technology of the Government of Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Thepublication was possible thanks to the financial support provided by the Government of Sweden and theSwedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).This study is an attempt to systematize the different dimensions of STI policy in Lao PDR from the latesixties to present. It compiles statistical information as well as presenting inventories of the fundamentalinstruments in order to create a reliable framework for policy analysis.The volume is organized so as to present the following items: (a) a long-term description of the political,economic, social, cultural and educational contextual factors; (b) a description on the status of womenin science and engineering; (c) a study of R&D and innovation indicators; (d) a long-term scientometricanalysis of scientific publications, patents, trademarks and utility models; (e) a historical background toSTI policies in Lao PDR, (f) a description of the STI policy cycle within the country; (g) a standard contentanalysis of the explicit STI policies, (h) a complete analysis of the STI organizational chart at five differentlevels (policy-making level; promotion level; research and innovation execution level; scientific andtechnological services level and evaluation level); (i) an inventory of all the STI government bodies andorganizations related to research and innovation activities and to science and technology services; (j) aninventory of the STI legal framework, including acts, bills, regulations and international agreements; (k) astandard inventory with 18 different analytic dimensions of all the STI operational policy instruments and(l) an analysis of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of the country’s research andinnovation landscape.