VietNamNet Bridge - For the first time, a quantitative study of Vietnam's output in international scientific publications in the field of social sciences and humanities has been published.

The number of ISI articles published by Vietnamese authors in 2011-2015

The report released by the Center for Interdisciplinary Social Research under Western University gave detailed figures and analyses about Vietnamese articles in social sciences publications. 

According to Ho Manh Tung and Nguyen To Viet Ha, two researchers at the center, collected information from 412 scientists in social sciences during the nine month survey. The scientists had articles published in Scopus scientific publications in 2008-2017. 

The articles of the 412 authors can be found in at least 12 disciplinary fields, from law, politics, administration, language, culture, arts, sociology and psychology.

The data analysis shows the modest output of international published work by Vietnamese scientists. Though the author with the highest output published 63 articles in the last 10 years, the average output was 3.6 articles only.

One scientist was the lead author in 60 articles, but the average figure was 1.77 articles.

The  researchers concluded that Vietnam social sciences lack ‘lead wolves’.

Researchers found 307 out of 421 scientists, or 75 percent, did not have articles under their names only.

Only nine scientists were lead authors in at least five articles, or 10 percent.

At least 232 scientists, or 56 percent, had at least one article in the last 10 years in which they were lead authors.

Vuong Quan Hoang, director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Social Research, said there are about 20 research groups with clear research orientations and achievements in social sciences. The number is modest if noting that Vietnam has nearly 300 universities and hundreds of institutes.

However, Hoang predicted that the number of internationally published works would increase by 25 percent in the time to come.

An analyst said that the findings have once again shown that Vietnam has scholars publishing articles in specific fields which only exist in Vietnam. 

Scientists once argued about whether to require professors/associate professors in social sciences to publish in international publications. Some scientists said it would be easier for scientists in natural scientists to do this than scientists in social sciences. 

However, the findings of Western University’s researchers show that the requirement is reasonable.

Under the draft regulation on granting professorships, by 2019 the candidates for professor in social sciences and humanities must be the main authors of at least one scientific article on ISI/Scopus. From 2020, they must have at least one more article as required.

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