Create new thinking to develop science and technology in education

Rapidly increase the number of projects and topics

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, by 2024, the potential of science and technology in education will be enhanced; in which, the scientific and technological human resources of the units under the Ministry will achieve remarkable developments in the ratio of PhDs/total number of lecturers; the number of international and domestic scientific publications, as well as inventions and intellectual property will increase gradually over the years. A number of scientific topics and tasks have made important and practical contributions to the socio-economic development of the country and localities.

Dr. Vu Thanh Binh, Deputy Director of the Department of Science, Technology and Information (Ministry of Education and Training) said that the Ministry has directed schools to promote international publications in prestigious scientific journals in the Web of Science/Scopus system, enhancing the presence of Vietnamese science on the international stage.

Schools are increasingly proactive in deciding on research directions and participating in scientific and technological tasks. As a result, the number of international scientific publications in Q1 and Q2 in journals in the Web of Science (WoS) category in 2024 was 2,258; in journals in the Scopus database was 3,202; in scientific journals in the ACI database was 730; and other international publications were 1,450.

Along with international publications, staff and lecturers of training institutions have published 9,249 articles in prestigious domestic scientific journals; the number of published monographs is 351; and the number of reference books is 892.

The country has two scientific journals of units under the Ministry of Education and Training indexed in the Scopus database; 15 journals indexed in the Southeast Asia Citation Center-ACI database; eight journals have completed ACI criteria; 10 scientific journals meet the regulations on quality, management and scientific criteria... The Ministry of Education and Training also approved 290 ministerial-level science and technology tasks to be implemented from 2025.

In scientific and technological activities, the participation of students and young lecturers is identified as an important task, nurturing passion for scientific research and discovering and nurturing talents.

According to statistics, the proportion of students participating in scientific research accounts for 30% - 35% of the total number of students in universities, mainly focusing on third-year students and above. In 2024 alone, the results of organizing science and technology awards for students in higher education institutions of the Ministry of Education and Training attracted 536 topics in six fields from 95 higher education institutions to register to participate.

The results of the organization of the science and technology award for young lecturers in higher education institutions of the education sector had 47 works in six fields from 29 higher education institutions registered to participate.

Some units have a continuously increasing number of international publications and citation indexes, such as Hanoi National University, the number of scientific articles published in the ISI/Scopus system in 2024 is 1,992, an increase of 281 articles compared to 2023, of which 1,217 articles are in groups Q1 and Q2. The rate of scientific publications in the Scopus database in groups Q1 and Q2 out of the total number of international publications is 64.3%.

Typically, Associate Professor, Dr. Le Duc Minh, University of Natural Sciences, is the co-author of three articles in Nature magazine; Associate Professor, Dr. Le Thanh Ha and a group of scientists from the University of Technology were granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the Eye Movement Communication Support System (Blife)...

Take output as a measure

According to the assessment of the Ministry of Education and Training, despite many positive results, scientific and technological activities are still not commensurate with the potential and requirements, especially for large higher education institutions. Research by most units is still small and fragmented, without many outstanding contributions, creating real changes for socio-economic development. Solutions and measures to mobilize financial resources from outside the State budget, especially from enterprises, are not strong enough...

The number of international publications has increased rapidly, but there is still not much research with high applicability; meanwhile, the connection between universities and businesses has not achieved the expected results, leading to limitations in commercializing research results.

Along with that, the state budget for research is still limited, while the mechanism for mobilizing social resources is not really effective, and implementation faces many difficulties due to problems in mechanisms and policies.

To improve the quality of scientific research in education, promote the development of science and technology, and apply it to practice, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Thuy (Hanoi National University) said that it is necessary to train scientific leaders, including leading PhDs, to quickly release products to solve big problems. Along with that, the institute-school-enterprise ecosystem is very important, and there needs to be support from businesses or a reasonable mechanism to promote start-ups.

Associate Professor, Dr. Mac Thi Thoa (Hanoi University of Science and Technology) said that it is necessary to create a favorable environment for lecturers and students to maximize their creativity in scientific research. In addition, there needs to be a long-term investment strategy and the support of businesses and international cooperation to make realistic requirements, from which scientists can perfect their products and link research with application.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, to improve the quality of scientific and technological activities, the entire education sector will innovate the method of developing scientific and technological plans in the direction of using output results as a measure of research results and as a basis for input consideration; strengthen decentralization and enhance accountability along with university autonomy; continue to amend and supplement legal documents on science and technology in higher education institutions.

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said that to gradually remove difficulties and shortcomings, the Ministry of Education and Training has synchronously deployed many solutions; in which, the most important is to perfect the legal framework according to new thinking, scientific research will be placed on par with training, becoming the core task of universities.

The Ministry of Education and Training also pays special attention to the role of heads of higher education institutions in promoting scientific research; building an evaluation and ranking mechanism to motivate schools to truly consider scientific research a strategic priority.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/tao-tu-duy-moi-phat-trien-khoa-hoc-cong-nghe-trong-giao-duc-post874515.html