In a brief interview on scientific and technological development strategy granted to the Vietnam Business Forum, Mr Tran Viet Hung, Vice President of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA), affirmed that procedural and structural obstacles hinder the development of science and technology. If these problems are not resolved, Vietnam’s science and technology sectors will be left behind by the region and the world. Nguyen Thanh reports.
The Prime Minister has recently approved the Vietnam Scientific and Technological Development Strategy in the 2011 - 2020 period. Mr Tran Viet Hung said the strategy had been prepared in a relatively long time by many expert organisations and built with experience and lessons drawn in the strategy from 2000 to 2010. Hence, a lot of changes will be found in the new strategy. Notable contents include the association of the scientific and technological development strategy with national socioeconomic development strategy; comprehensive renovations in investment mechanism and financial mechanism for scientific and technological activities; speeding socialisation of scientific and technological investment, and centralised roles of businesses in scientific and technological research.
There is a fact that many scientific studies are aimed at creating employment. They are not applied to reality or they are too bad to be applied. What causes this reality?
Many scientists have talked about procedural and structural difficulties. I think structural difficulties are caused by the administrative ways of establishing, managing and funding researches. However, in the new scientific and technological development strategy, this content is regulated towards international practices. This is a very good factor.
Similarly, administrative procedures and billing documents with rigid funding quantification are also burning problems in payment to research projects. Fortunately, in the new strategy, this shortcoming will be eliminated.
Therefore, it is necessary to broadly change scientific and technological management mechanisms and scientific and technological financing mechanisms to enable scientists to live on their creativity and attract social investment for scientific and technological development..
As known, the world has successfully built the Centre of Excellence (COE) model. Do you think Vietnam can apply this model?
Each nation has its own circumstances and conditions to have its typical research models. However, the current general trend of scientific development is the combination of different sectors because most scientific and technological products are resulted from the integration of scientific and technical achievements of various industries. So, in my opinion, the establishment of theme-based research teams is very important.
However, there is a difficulty in our country that scientists are not familiar with team researches. In developed countries, this skill is trained at school.
How will the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations do to stimulate the creation of scientific products meeting requirements of national economic development and international integration?
The Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations had significant contributions to the construction of scientific and technological development strategy for the 2011-2020 phase. In the coming time, with its functions and responsibilities, the union will step up the popularisation in a bid to raise awareness of scientific and technological roles in the society, disseminate advanced scientific and technological knowledge, launch country-scaled technological innovation movements, and contribute specific solution to investment mechanisms, management mechanisms and policies for using domestic and international scientists and technologists to help execute the strategy approved by the Prime Minister.
And, I think that we need to launch a mechanism enabling social and economic places orders for scientific and technological researches. To operate this mechanism effectively, it is vital to determine objectives and tasks, assign capable organisations and individuals to take on, and finally evaluate results and determine fields to apply research results.
This mechanism is quite new in Vietnam but, I think, it is necessary. Placing orders to carry out scientific and technological tasks is applied to such fields as natural sciences, social sciences, technologies and techniques. This mechanism should be made public and democratic and open to all economic, scientific and technological organisations where the roles of enterprises are very important.
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