I have now had a response back from my head of department and our faculty finance office. I am sorry to inform you that - at the moment - we do have a problem obtaining permission to approve your visit from the university.
UWE wishes to make sure that we can provide a good quality of service for all visiting scholars. This means making sure that the university can provide an appropriate programme of academic and professional support for you.
One difficulty is that we suddenly find that we have a shortage in staff capacity. My colleagues in public health and child development need to prepare for a re-validation of their undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the period between now and May 2016. At the same time two colleagues have moved to new jobs, which means that everyone is under a lot of work pressure.
A second difficulty concerned the level of funding available to support a one-off programme of academic supervision alongside the English language course. I have explained the issue regarding the level of the grant available to you from the Ministry of Public Health, and the exchange rate between the UK and Thailand.
You can be sure that the standard of your application is very good and that, under other circumstances, UWE would be delighted to host yourself and colleagues from Mahidol University.
As soon as possible, I will have a meeting with our Director of International Development in the Faculty Executive to discuss your application. I would very much like to find a solution here, particularly because you have put a lot of work into organizing your application.
As a matter of urgency I will email you as soon as possible.