After 20 years of implementing the policy of autonomy for scientific and technological research organizations, it is still a headache for the Institutes, when all year round they are only concerned with "running around" for enough topics to pay regular salaries for their staff. Therefore, demanding "breakthrough" products is unrealistic.
When listening to Dan Viet reporters raise the issue to share their wishes, recommendations, and proposals after the Politburo issued Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation, many scientists in the agricultural sector opened their hearts comfortably. The tasks, solutions, and contents stated in Resolution 57 are exactly what scientists who have spent their lives working with rice and potatoes have always longed for day and night.
20 years of implementing autonomy and self-responsibility: The fate of research institutes is increasingly gloomy
In an interview with Dan Viet, Prof. Dr. Le Huy Ham - Former Director of the Institute of Agricultural Genetics, Head of the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) acknowledged that recently, science and technology have encountered many difficulties. The policy of creating a mechanism of autonomy and self-responsibility for public science and technology organizations stipulated in Decree 115 of 2005, due to different interpretations at each management perspective, has been like a "punch" that has prevented science and technology from truly developing according to its true nature.
Decree 115 on autonomy and self-responsibility allows research and development (R&D) establishments to be autonomous in terms of human resources, infrastructure, finance and organization. After nearly 20 years of implementation, this policy has increasingly shown its inadequacies. Perhaps, many factors have not been carefully considered within the framework of this policy, namely: i) Our human resources are managed according to the law on civil servants and public employees. No R&D establishment can fire, recruit or appoint personnel in any other way.
First, in terms of finance, when bidding for a task, the budget has been divided into every penny by the management agency. There is no room for financial autonomy here. Many ministries do not allocate funds for regular activities, so they have nothing to be autonomous about here either.
Second, infrastructure, assets, intellectual property... are managed according to the corresponding laws, and cannot be done otherwise.
Third, regarding autonomy in research direction, it sounds reasonable but is the weakest point of this regulation because an R&D facility, at any level of Institute, Center or Department, is established with a certain function and task (political task - as we often say) and must be funded from the state budget to carry out. Now, we require R&D facilities to be autonomous in research direction so as not to depend on the budget, we have inadvertently separated them from the assigned political task. Actively creating overlapping factors, disrupting the research system which is already not very disciplined. There are areas where many Institutes/Schools compete to rush into, there are areas that are left open, although necessary. The original division of tasks is invalidated.
Prof. Dr. Le Huy Ham - Former Director of the Institute of Agricultural Genetics, Head of the Faculty of Agricultural Technology, University of Technology, (VNU) said that Decree 115 of 2005 on autonomy and self-responsibility is like a "fist" that makes science and technology not really develop according to its true nature. Photo: Minh Ngoc
These R&D establishments should have a stable regular source of funding to pursue the state's assignment. If the task becomes unnecessary, they should be changed, merged, or dissolved through objective assessments by the management agency and professional council. If the leaders of the R&D establishments do not complete the tasks assigned to them, they should be fired. Only then can we have a healthy science and technology system.
Comparing autonomy in science with "contract 10" in agriculture is probably not reasonable. Because contract 10 in agriculture has been "secretly" implemented by farmers and local leaders in many places, for many years, and then summarized into the very famous Resolution 100 (contract 10). "Contract 10" in agriculture has in fact been exchanged for the sweat and tears of farmers and the political careers of many local leaders and was drawn from the reality of farmers' production life. That is why it saved the whole country from poverty in the 80s and 90s of the last century. Mechanically applying this experience has led to disastrous consequences as we have seen in reality: The research system has been clearly weakened. (Professor-VS Le Huy Ham)
Each institute is given 5 billion VND/year, but the salaries of scientific staff cannot be paid, so how can we retain talented people?
Prof. Dr. Le Huy Ham said that society's assessment of agricultural science and technology is not fair. In the 80s and 90s of the last century, we had to import rice, then gradually had enough rice to eat and started to have rice and agricultural products for export... by 2024, the value of agricultural exports will be over 62 billion USD, making us the world's leading agricultural exporter.
To achieve the above results, in addition to having the right policy mechanism, investment, and dynamism of enterprises, the contribution of agricultural science and technology is not small, those contributions are the most prominent and visible. It must be affirmed that this achievement of Vietnam's agricultural science and technology is difficult for any country to compare, if compared to the level of investment received.
Thanks to science and technology, many varieties of plants, animals, farming processes, and scientific and technical advances have been applied. If we look at a topic or a project, we may not see immediate results. But overall, it is indeed a breakthrough in agriculture compared to previous years.
Despite many breakthroughs, however, investment in agricultural science and technology is still extremely modest. Before merging with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to form the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development alone was a very large Ministry, consisting of 5 ministries combined: Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Food Industry, Ministry of Irrigation, Ministry of Fisheries, Ministry of Forestry. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has up to 60 research institutes/centers. Each year, this Ministry is granted more than 700 billion, including salary expenses and the rest is for R&D. On average, each institute/center is only granted (through bidding for topics and projects) about 5 billion at most. This investment level is too low compared to the threshold required for investment to be effective.
Mr. Lam Ngoc Tuan - Director of Tuan Ngoc Agricultural Cooperative (Long Truong Ward, Thu Duc City, Ho Chi Minh City) successfully developed a collective economic model applying high technology. Photo: Le Giang
In recent years, salaries for staff at Institutes/Centers have been decreasing, many Institutes can only pay 50-60% - the already low salary of staff, this has led to a mass exodus of scientific staff. Among them, there are many staff who have become famous, they go to any place where they can survive. As for new staff, they do not join research institutes, staff sent to study abroad do not return. To restore this staff force, it may take us 10-15 years.
Our science and technology is shifting from purely applying technology to creating technology, and this is a very important stage. At this stage, the risks in research will be higher, the required investment level will be larger, longer-term, and follow a certain strategic direction. If we do not invest enough funds and organize the system effectively, not only will we not be able to move to creating technology, but developing technology applications will also be a challenge. This forces us to streamline the system, avoid overlap, assign tasks clearly, and provide regular operating funds to units so that they can pursue the long-term political tasks they were assigned at the time of establishment. If investment in science and technology is not thorough and does not reach the threshold, science and technology will never be effective, especially in the current stage.
Of course, funding always comes with evaluation. We must have short-term, medium-term and long-term plans. At least in a group of scientists or an Institute, they must be funded for a 5-year term to be able to make medium-term plans and long-term strategic orientations. When there is enough funding and time, the Institutes can plan research strategies and implement the division of fields in the national science and technology system. After each stage, R&D facilities will be evaluated. If they achieve the expected science and technology results, then funding will continue to be provided, thus creating motivation for science and technology.
Scientific research must be linked to training and vice versa.
Professor Le Huy Ham commented: Recently, we have sent a relatively large number of cadres to study abroad under various programs, but most of them have not returned. Partly because of low salaries, partly because the policy mechanism has not attracted them back. At the same time, each year people also spend billions of dollars to send their children to study abroad. That is a huge resource. If we can attract this force to return, we will save a lot of budget money. But we are doing this very poorly. We need a strategy to attract this force back through mechanisms, policies and working conditions.
In the past, high-quality human resources for science and technology relied on the workforce trained in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, but recently this source has almost disappeared. Currently, domestically, we have the capacity to provide high-quality training in a number of fields, but the training method is still not suitable. In other countries, doctoral, master's and post-doctoral students do not have to pay tuition fees, but are paid scholarships to carry out research projects. In this way, society has taken advantage of high-quality, young human resources with aspirations for development to realize the goals of science and technology programs.
Lecturers of Vietnam National Academy of Agriculture study and conduct scientific research with students.
At the same time, it trains human resources for the future by the method of "learning by doing" under the guidance of leading scientists. That is the best training method. However, in our country, doctoral and master's students do not have salaries/scholarships, have to worry about tuition fees, and rarely have topics to do their graduation theses, so the quality of postgraduate training is patchy and at a low level. Therefore, many training institutions cannot recruit doctoral and master's students.
In addition, we do not have a postdoc fellow system - a form of training that involves graduate students participating in a real research environment under the guidance of leading professors - which is very effective in Western countries. This form of training helps young PhDs develop to "maturity" in a real research environment before truly entering their own careers. Failure to build strong research universities means that we miss out on a high-quality training opportunity and a large force of lecturers, graduate students and students with the potential to make great contributions to science and technology. Their participation is also of great value in improving the quality of teaching and training at universities that are oriented towards social practice. A typical example is Larry Page and Sergey Brin - the founders of Google when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California (USA).
On the other hand, when a teacher has both theory and practice, the lectures will be more profound, more thorough, and will guide students in a more quality and practical way. This is different from a teacher who only has knowledge from books.
Students who are trained in the direction of both studying and researching will be those with practical knowledge, after graduation they will shorten the time of access, thereby improving the quality of training. Currently, many schools are training very high quality students, however, they take a long time to access reality after graduation. Therefore, aiming to develop Research Universities is very important.
From that reality, when foreigners come to Vietnam, they ask me: "If research is not training, what is the point of research? If training is not research, what is the point of training?"
Expectations for 3 Resolutions of the Politburo, National Assembly, Government
According to Prof. Dr. Le Huy Ham, it can be affirmed that Resolution No. 57 of the Politburo, Resolution No. 193 of the National Assembly and Resolution No. 03 of the Government show the great attention of the Party and State to science and technology, especially directly General Secretary To Lam has given very close direction to the field of science and technology. These 3 Resolutions will bring Vietnamese science and technology to a very big step forward.
Looking back over the past few years, we can clearly see that science and technology have revealed many limitations and problems in financial mechanisms, bidding, management, allocation, assets formed during project research... In the past, I always said, "No matter how many problems we solve, without the involvement and direction of the highest authority of the country, the Politburo, the National Assembly, and the Government, we will not be able to solve the difficulties and problems of science and technology".
The above 3 Resolutions have many breakthroughs for science and technology. Among them, increasing investment levels, reducing administrative procedures, allocating funds according to funds, allocating expenditures, handling assets formed from science and technology, assets purchased during the implementation of research projects, allowing the formation of enterprises... are regulations that are much more "open" than before.
Then scientists are formed into enterprises and participate in enterprises. "People must enjoy the fruits of their labor and research, thereby creating motivation to work, not doing it to pay for homework". With the same topic, the same project, research to accept the topic requires one effort, but to reach the applied product requires at least three times more effort. Allowing scientists to enjoy the fruits of their labor is a huge change, which will encourage scientists to aim for applied products that benefit the whole society, including themselves. From here, they will promote applied research, prioritize proposals for scientific and technological research and development suitable to the absorption capacity of the economy and enterprises of Vietnam.
Dr. Dao Minh So and his colleagues from the Southern Institute of Agricultural Sciences (Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences) spent nearly 10 years researching to successfully select three rice varieties: red (SR20), purple (SR21), and black (SR22) that meet the criteria of purity, yield, disease resistance, nutritional composition, etc. Photo: Ha An
Prof. Dr. Le Huy Ham said that to effectively implement the above 3 Resolutions, firstly, during the implementation process, we must maintain the "open spirit of the Resolutions". We must not let "the top be hot, but the bottom be cold". If there are any problems in the implementation process, the Ministries and branches must synthesize, report and ask for opinions from the highest authority for correction.
Second, science and technology are always developing, while we are still "learning to do science". More than 30 years ago, Vietnam was a country with a backward agricultural system. It was not until the 90s of the last century that the development of the science and technology system began and scientists were given a little funding. Then, from 2000, state-level programs were formed, all of these steps were just "experience and learning steps". As for the depth of science and technology, we do not have it yet. Therefore, there must always be communication between state managers of science and technology and scientists to listen to the "beat" of science and technology, see where the problems are, and then promptly resolve them.
Professor Le Huy Ham said that in the 18th century, when the first industrial revolution took place, Karl Marx went to England to study and he predicted that science and technology would become the direct productive force of society and today such a trend is becoming more and more evident.
Currently, in our country, that trend is also forming in Institutes, Schools and enterprises. Science and technology are becoming a direct productive force, creating products serving social life. Therefore, "listening to the pulse and breathing" of science and technology will help from the highest levels to managers to promptly resolve arising difficulties and problems. However, this process must be continuous, not left for a long time like the recent past to start editing. If we can do so, science and technology will become an effective tool in the hands of the Party and the State to develop the country as expected.
Is it true that scientists have to "cut out" a percentage of scientific research topics?
During the process of writing the series, a famous scientist (who asked to remain anonymous) specializing in research and plant breeding told Dan Viet reporters about many negative aspects in bidding for projects. He said that doing science is already very hard, with many procedures... and also having to worry about "kickbacks and percentages in bidding packages".
According to this scientist, "kickbacks" are not uncommon in science. Recently, when implementing a project on a specialty rice variety in a locality with a budget of several billion VND, he had to spend 50 million VND on paperwork and was also asked to "cut" an additional 30%. "I couldn't stand it, so I returned the project and the budget to the State," he said.
In bidding for research topics on breeds, when winning the bid, research groups often show favoritism in sharing the implementation costs, leading to lack of determination in investing in research, "going all the way to the end" and thus not creating high-quality breeds.
Faced with the above reality, this scientist proposed that, in addition to increasing the income level for scientists, the State needs to create a good environment for them to freely research and create. Avoid the situation where scientists are "humiliated", and negative situations arise through mechanisms of asking - giving, "backstabbing", "kickbacks", "paying percentages" in scientific bidding.
According to him, scientists strongly support the bidding for topics, but in the context that Vietnam has many similar research institutes/centers, as it is now, it is necessary to select units with real capacity, good research groups to carry out scientific topics and tasks. Avoid the situation of allocating topics in the style of "water flowing to low places", spreading funding and assigning to weak units will not achieve the expected research results.
He also believes that in order to select talented people to do scientific research, the State should not distinguish between public and private units when bidding. Because the bidding mechanism still has many problems, many good and experienced scientists have to work for weak units and project managers, making them very dissatisfied and unable to fully demonstrate their talents.
For scientific bidding, many research groups are constantly worried about their research topics being revealed. Some scientists have just made a mistake in their name or spelling, but when it was revealed, they were immediately disqualified. He said it was "very painful".
Source: https://danviet.vn/57-trong-nong-nghiep-qua-dam-tu-chu-tu-chiu-trach-nhiem-trong-khcn-khi-vien-truong-phai-chay-vay-lo-luong-bai-3-20250311221705354.htm
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