Science and technology in Vietnam

Structure of the economy

Viet Nam has become increasingly integrated into the world economy, particularly since its efforts to liberalize the economy enabled it to join the World Trade Organization in 2007. The manufacturing and service sectors each account for 40% of GDP. However, almost half the labour force (48%) is still employed in agriculture. One million workers a year, out of a total of 51.3 million in 2010, are projected to continue leaving agriculture for the other economic sectors in the foreseeable future.^[1][2]

In manufacturing, Viet Nam is expected to lose some of its current comparative advantage in low wages in the near future. It will need to compensate for this loss with productivity gains, if it is to sustain high growth rates: GDP per capita has almost doubled since 2008. High-tech exports from Viet Nam grew dramatically during 2008–2013, particularly with respect to office computers and electronic communications equipment. A big challenge will be to implement strategies that increase the potential for enhancing technology and skills currently present in large multinational firms to smaller-scale domestic firms. This will require strategies to enhance technical capacity and skills among local firms that are, as yet, only weakly integrated with global production chains.^[2]

Many foreign multinational firms have gravitated towards Vietnam in recent years but the number of patents nevertheless remains low: 47 were granted between 2002 and 2013. Even though 11% of Southeast Asia's high-tech exports came from Vietnam in 2013 (excluding the Republic of Korea and Japan), according to the Comtrade database, the majority of high-tech exports from Vietnam were designed elsewhere and assembled in Vietnam. Even if foreign firms change their behaviour and intensify their in-house R&D, this will only boost R&D in Vietnam if the multinationals can train a sufficient number of local personnel and work with skilled local suppliers and firms.^[2]

Higher education

Since 1995, enrolment in higher education has grown tenfold to well over 2 million in 2012. By 2014, there were 419 institutions of higher education.^[3] A number of foreign universities operate private campuses in Vietnam, including Harvard University (USA) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Australia).^[2]

The government’s strong commitment to education (6.3% of GDP in 2012), in general, and higher education, in particular (1.05% of GDP in 2012), has fostered significant growth in higher education but this growth will need to be sustained to retain academics. The Law on Higher Education (2012) gives university administrators greater autonomy, although the Ministry of Education retains responsibility for quality assurance.^[2]

Institutional context

There are a large number of universities and an even larger pool of research institutions in Vietnam. This poses a challenge for ministries in terms of co-ordination. To some extent, market forces are likely to eliminate the smaller and financially weaker units.^[2]

The autonomy which Vietnamese research centres have enjoyed since the mid-1990s has enabled many of them to operate as quasi-private organizations, providing services such as consulting and technology development. Some have ‘spun off’ from the larger institutions to form their own semi-private enterprises, fostering the transfer of public sector personnel employed in science and technology to these semi-private establishments. One comparatively new university, Ton Duc Thang (est. 1997), has already set up 13 centres for technology transfer and services that together produce 15% of university revenue. Many of these research centres serve as valuable intermediaries bridging public research institutions, universities and firms.^[2]

Policy developments

The Law on Higher Education (2012) offers university administrators greater autonomy and there are reports that growing numbers of academic staff are also serving as advisors to NGOs and private firms. The Strategy for Science and Technology Development for 2011–2020 drawn up by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2012, builds upon this law by promoting public–private partnerships and seeking to transform ‘public S&T organisations into self-managed and accountable mechanisms as stipulated by law’. The main emphasis is on overall planning and priority-setting, with a view to enhancing innovation capability, particularly in industrial sectors. Although the Strategy omits to fix any targets for funding, it nevertheless sets broad policy directions and priority areas for investment, including:^[2]

• research in mathematics and physics;
• investigation of climate change and natural disasters;
• development of operating systems for computers, tablets nd mobile devices;
• biotechnology applied particularly to agriculture, forestry, fisheries and medicine; and
• environmental protection.

The Strategy foresees the development of a network of organizations to support consultancy services in the field of innovation and the development of intellectual property. The Strategy also seeks to promote greater international scientific co-operation, with a plan to establish a network of Vietnamese scientists overseas and to initiate a network of ‘outstanding research centres’ linking key national science institutions with partners abroad.^[2]

Vietnam has also developed a set of national development strategies for selected sectors of the economy, many of which involve science and technology. Examples are the Sustainable Development Strategy (April 2012) and the Mechanical Engineering Industry Development Strategy (2006), together with Vision 2020 (2006). These dual strategies call for a highly skilled human resource base, a strong policy for investment in research and development, fiscal policies to encourage technological upgrading in the private sector and private-sector investment and regulations to steer investment towards sustainable development.^[2][5]

Research trends

In 2011, domestic research expenditure amounted to 0.19% of GDP, one of the lowest ratios in Southeast Asia. Women accounted for 41% of the country's researchers in 2012, one of the highest ratios in Southeast Asia.^[2]

The number of Vietnamese publications in Thomson Reuters' Web of Science has increased at a rate well above the average for Southeast Asia but from a low starting point: Vietnamese scientists had 570 articles catalogued in international journals in 2005 and 2 298 in 2014. By 2014, Vietnam had a modest scientific publication density of 25 publications per million inhabitants. This places Vietnam behind Thailand (94), Vanuatu (74) and the Solomon Islands (30) but ahead of the Lao Peoples' Democratic Republic (19). Vietnamese publications catalogued in international journals focus mainly on life sciences (22%), physics (13%) and engineering (13%), which is consistent with recent advances in the production of diagnostic equipment and shipbuilding. Almost 77% of all papers published between 2008 and 2014 by Vietnamese scientists had at least one international co-author, which is common in developing countries.^[2]