Maejo Longan Research and Development Center was establishment by a financial scholarship from GTZ on January 6, 2005, and a temporary office was set up in the Pomology Department at Maejo University.
In the beginning, the center focused on passing on its knowledge by providing services to local businesses and farmers. In the same year (2005), a group of Longan researchers, with Asst. Prof. Pawin Manochai as the director, coordinated the event “Mae Jo: Science of Longan” for the first time. This event was successful and acclaimed throughout the university, since it demonstrated the university’s expertise very well. Therefore, it was proposed before the Board of Maejo University that a longan center should be set up on July 24, 2006 with Asst. Prof. Pawin as the first director, and he managed the center’s work as an entrepreneurial model.
After that, as the management of the center’s work progressed in the entrepreneurial model (seeking its own funds), it was evident that the center could not continue functioning this way, since 80% of its activities consisted of scholarly pursuits. Therefore, in the review meeting on 19th December 2009, the board decided to declare the Maejo Longan Research and Development Center an “Excellence Centre” of the university in order to focus on scholarly pursuits, and the center was supported by the university from that point onward.