Vietnam moves up in scientific research ranking

The Vietnam Academy of Science & Technology tops the list of Vietnamese research institutes, followed by universities. Among universities, Ton Duc Thang is in the first position, followed by the HCM City National University and HCM City University of Education. 

Tran Duy Quy, former director of the Institute of Agricultural Genetics Vietnam, said Vietnam’s promotion in ranking shows its improvement in scientific research.

“This proves that Vietnam has begun integrating well into the world,” he said. 

He mentioned one associate professor who has had 98 scientific articles internationally published in the last 12 years, though he is very young. He is a member of the editorial board of five journals and the editor-in-chief of an international journal on biotechnology.

However, according to Quy, the achievements are still far below the potential as current policies are still not good enough for talent encouragement.

The majority of talents sent abroad for study do not return after finishing studying. 

“Only if can we persuade them return to the homeland will we be able to catch up with Thailand and South Korea in the quality of scientific research,” he commented.

According to Quy, under the new regulation to be applied from 2018-2019, internationally published research works will be considered effective only if the works are quoted by others. If no one quotes the research works, they will be considered ineffective.

“The higher rank shows that Vietnam has entered the global playing field and this is significant,” he said. 

Vietnam is the 57th among 163 surveyed nations in the recent Nature Publishing ranking in scientific research.

Under the draft regulation on granting professorships, in the future candidates for professor in natural sciences and technology must be the main authors of at least two scientific articles on ISI/Scopus; or they must have one scientific article on ISI/Scopus and one book/one chapter that serves training; or have one scientific article on ISI/Scopus and hold one patent.  

When asked why universities are below Vietnam Academy of Science & Technology in the ranking, a university lecturer in Hanoi said the academy has many research topics and laboratories. Second, institutes have to carry out scientific research at a deeper level, while schools mostly update knowledge in theory.

However, he said some universities in Vietnam are very good at scientific research, have funds to support the research, and have prestige in the world, particularly medical schools.

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