Scientists say that regulations related to valuation of assets formed from the results of scientific and technological tasks are unclear, creating barriers to bringing research results to the market.
Speaking at the workshop "Innovation in the management mechanism and handling of assets formed from scientific and technological tasks using the state budget", organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology on December 25, Deputy Minister Le Xuan Dinh said that perfecting the management mechanism and assets formed from tasks is very important. He expected scientists to contribute with multi-dimensional perspectives to perfect the policy system.
The Deputy Minister acknowledged that the current legal framework has not yet been put into practice. If the main bottleneck is not handled promptly and synchronously, the assets created from scientists' research tasks will not be able to be widely applied.
Deputy Minister Le Xuan Dinh speaks at the workshop. Photo: TTTT
Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Quoc Binh, Vice Principal of the University of Natural Sciences, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, stated that the most problematic reality lies in the two words "loss and valuation".
He said that land and real estate valuation is quite easy because there is clear information with an acceptable error of 15%. "But with public assets, 15% is considered a violation. Meanwhile, assets formed from scientific and technological tasks are a new issue, so it is very difficult to value," he said.
In asset liquidation, Mr. Binh gave an example of scientific and technological equipment with a regulation of over 500 million that needs to be appraised. When doing so, it is necessary to spend more money to hire companies to appraise the liquidation. "At that time, the liquidation and appraisal can lead to more losses," Associate Professor Binh said.
Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Duc Loi, Director of the Vietnam - Korea Institute of Science and Technology (VKIST), said that in reality, his institute currently has many technologies and topics related to the state budget and enterprises but they cannot be transferred. The reason is related to technology valuation and profit sharing.
Meanwhile, the same job, when doing the transfer with KIST (Korea), the implementation is very quick according to the practice. They price according to the criteria of considering the technology product as a specific topic for the council to evaluate the cost, called the base price for the transfer.
He recognized that assets formed from implementing scientific and technological tasks are mainly related to technology, used to transfer to businesses, so an approach based on base pricing (floor price) is necessary. "Korea's approach is to build a base price, put the website on the market so that the unit with high demand can pay the highest price to own it," he said.
Or according to US international practice, valuation is carried out according to three criteria including business evaluation standards based on income, market and cost approaches.
In 2019, the Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 10 on guidelines for determining the value of assets resulting from scientific and technological tasks using state capital. "This Circular closely follows the US approach, but Vietnam does not have a full market, making it very difficult to solve the problem of product pricing," said Mr. Loi.
Associate Professor, Dr. Vu Duc Loi expressed his opinion at the workshop. Photo: TTTT
Prof. Dr. Tran Dinh Hoa, Head of the KC08 Program, said that in terms of valuation, if we consider the impact of technology applied in production life, we can evaluate it based on the level of productivity quality. However, the impacts serving the proposal of long-term planning and forecasting strategies are very difficult to value. "There are topics that will only develop their value 5-10 years later, how can we value them?", he said.
He stated that in the field of natural disaster prevention, coastal protection technology is being researched but is experimental in nature, making it difficult for the responsible unit to evaluate and monitor. Or new experiments and calculation models conducted in the laboratory need to monitor the progress of the entire process, and only when successful can they be replicated can they be accepted and handed over. Therefore, he recommended classifying assets appropriately, each type such as serving policy mechanisms, or directly transferred technology products, or assets forming patent monopolies.
At the workshop, scientists also pointed out other shortcomings, in which the method of determining the price based on the total cost of implementing the task is not suitable because there is also an important contribution of "gray matter". This is a cost that is difficult to quantify. Therefore, it is currently difficult to find an agency capable of appraising the price of assets from the task, causing difficulties in commercialization.
According to Associate Professor Phi Quyet Tien, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, the division of profits from commercializing research results and intellectual property created with the state budget has not created motivation for authors to commercialize research results. He recommended a mechanism to support copyright, transferring authors and the presiding agency. Regarding valuation costs, Associate Professor Tien also proposed a 3-party contract initiative, including the participation of the Valuation Institute and future beneficiaries to solve problems for businesses and scientists.
Associate Professor Dr. Tran Quoc Binh proposed three solutions. One is to consider investment in projects as a grant, not an investment to recover capital, which means accepting the risk. In this case, intellectual property transferred to enterprises is recovered indirectly through the tax mechanism. Two is , at a lower level, not selling the formed intellectual property but using the mechanism of giving the right to use, collecting a percentage of revenue from that property. That is, how much is sold, the revenue is returned to the market to determine the price (this method is being used by Hanoi National University). Three is , if valuation is carried out, there needs to be a common floor level applied when explaining the project topic, to avoid violations related to valuation procedures and collusion.
Receiving and acknowledging the opinions raised at the workshop, the representative of the Ministry of Science and Technology said that they will continue to coordinate with the Ministry of Finance in the process of perfecting policies, reviewing and amending regulations on mechanisms in managing assets formed from programs and tasks, and removing obstacles to the Law on Public Asset Management, Science and Technology... in order to remove bottlenecks for transfer activities.
Nhu Quynh
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