Vietnam to upgrade professor quality by requiring more ISI articles

Under the draft regulation on granting professorships, by 2019 the candidates for professor in natural sciences and technology must be the main authors of at least two scientific articles on ISI/Scopus; or they must have one scientific article on ISI/Scopus and one book/one chapter that serves training; or have one scientific article on ISI/Scopus and hold one patent.  

The candidates in social sciences and humanities must be the main authors of at least one scientific article on ISI/Scopus. From 2020, they must have at least one more article as required.

Commenting about the draft regulation, scientists say the number of scientific articles required is still modest. The Mathematics Institute believes that it is necessary to heighten the requirements on professors/associate professors in natural sciences. 

Associate professors should be required to have at least four articles, or twice as much as the number stipulated in the draft regulation, while professors should have eight articles, much higher than MOET’s requirement. 

A lecturer from Hanoi National University commented that the draft requirements are lower than those in other countries. 

Dao Trong Thi, former chair of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children, commented that the requirement on international publications would be a difficult task.

It would be not be a problem for scientists in natural sciences because they have become used to the requirements. However, it would be a difficult task for scientists in other fields, including social sciences. Therefore, Thi suggested setting specific requirements in each field of research instead of setting the same requirements for all fields.

According to Prof Nguyen Dinh Duc from Hanoi National University, all candidates for professor/associate professor titles in physics and mechanics last year had ISI articles. Higher requirements should be set for some fields such as math, physics, chemistry and mechanical engineering. 

Duc noted that in developed countries, research students must have at least two ISI articles before defending PhD dissertations, and there is no exclusion for anyone or any research field. Therefore, it takes students in social sciences, economics and law more time than students in natural sciences and technology to obtain doctorates.

In Vietnam, the number of research students in social sciences and humanities, economics and law is four times higher than the number of research students in natural sciences and technology.