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ADVANCING IN WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKING TABLES
For the first time, VNU and two other Vietnam’s higher education institutions were listed among the world’s top 1,000 universities by Times Higher Education. Accordingly, VNU belongs to the world's top 801 - 1,000 with the highest indicators of teaching, scientific research and international integration among Vietnam's higher education institutions. Besides, according to the 2020 QS World University Rankings, VNU remains among the 801 - 1,000 best global universities.
According to Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject, VNU's Engineering and Technology field features in the 401 - 500 group. Earlier on, VNU’s Physics and Astronomy broad area ranked 501 - 550 globally by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and first among Vietnam’s higher education institutions; the broad area of Computer Science and Information Systems, and that of Mechanical Engineering, Aviation and Manufacturing are in the top 551 - 600 and 451 - 500, respectively.
According to the 2019 Best Global Universities rankings by US News & World Report, VNU ranked the 1059th globally and first in Vietnam. Also in this ranking, VNU's Physics field ranked the 472nd globally, climbing 30 places compared to its 502nd in 2018. The 2019 Webometrics ranking results of Cybermetrics Lab show that VNU continues to be the leading higher education institution in Vietnam with its 1013th place globally, climbing nearly 80 places compared to the preceding rankings. Also in 2019, VNU's index of digital resources (Presence) was ranked the 38th globally for the first time. Most recently, VNU’s Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices has been selected to feature in the Web of Science Citation Index Expanded and became the only Vietnamese journal of science featured in this index.
INNOVATING TEACHING ACTIVITIES TO CREATE A BREAKTHROUGH IN TRAINING QUALITY
In 2019, VNU launched a scheme to innovate teaching activities in the 2019 - 2025 period in order to create a breakthrough in improving the quality, enhancing the status and brand name of VNU in the context of globalization. This scheme helps to comprehensively and systematically innovate teaching-learning technology, internship activities, curricula, learning materials, facilities, information technology infrastructure, qualification and skills of lecturers, to contribute to the provision of qualities, skills and competencies for students to respond to the digital times.
As one of the teaching innovation activities, VNU has established the Centre for Teaching Excellence aimed to research, approach and disseminate new educational technologies, methods as well as to inspire lecturers of the whole VNU's system.
In addition to its own solutions, VNU has studied and learned from the teaching methods of a number of most advanced universities in the world through inviting external consultants and sending its lecturers to study and retrain (such as VIBE Project) to enhance skills, promote creative thinking in the spirit of entrepreneurship, develop teaching practice methods in the form of new experiences.
IMPLEMENTING KEY NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY TASKS
The year 2019 marks an important milestone when Vietnam Prime Minister appointed VNU to lead the implementation of the Project on the translation and promotion of the quintessence of oriental classics. This project aims to comprehensively and systematically translate and promote the quintessence of oriental classics; thereby raising public awareness of the humanity’s ideological and cultural values, contributing to the comprehensive development of Vietnamese culture and people.
Along with the hosting of the Vietnam National Gazetteers Project, VNU has also been the host of two out of Vietnam’s five major scientific projects in the fields of social sciences and humanities and interdisciplinarity. Besides, about 60% of the workload of the Vietnam National History project hosted by the Vietnam Historians’ Association has been implemented by VNU scientists; as for the project “Developing the Digitalized Vietnamese Knowledge System” hosted by the Ministry of Science and Technology, VNU scientists developed the Vietnam Digital Map Data Platform (VMap) with more than 23.4 million address points across the country, helping to provide users with information about maps, address search, directions and applications in management and business.
In 2019, VNU was implementing the project “Developing the Vietnamese Studies Learning Resource Centre” at VNU in order to build a comprehensive large-scale Vietnamese Studies learning resource centre oriented towards interdisciplinarity, modernity and multi-functionality. This will be a digitalized data system, developed on the basis of the intelligent information technology system for sharing information and knowledge related to Vietnam. The centre will be connected with the archives, libraries and related data systems in Vietnam and other countries worldwide to meet the requirements of Vietnamese Studies materials exploitation in the context of globalization, contributing to the development of national data systems and the enhancement of Vietnam's image.
The European project on the study of the history and digitization of Vietnamese epitaphs (VIETNAMICA) is jointly implemented by VNU, the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and the French Network of Institutes for Advanced Study. The project, funded by the EU European Research Council, is expected to be implemented within five years from 2019 to 2024 over a vast area including Vietnam, France and some other European countries.
Over the past year, in cooperation with the National Office of Intellectual Property (the Ministry of Science & Technology), VNU has implemented a project to promote intellectual property registration, investment and support for potential products to register their intellectual property rights. As a result, there have been nearly 50 applications for patent protection and protection of utility solutions.
FURTHER DEVELOPING THE MODEL OF IDENTIFYING, TRAINING AND CULTIVATING TALENTS
Being persistent with the mission of training the country's elite human resources, in 2019, VNU established ULIS Middle School and High School for Gifted Students in Social Sciences and Humanities.
The establishment of VNU ULIS Middle School is a milestone turning VNU University of Languages and International Studies into VNU’s first member university to complete the training model from middle to high school education, besides its undergraduate and graduate education. ULIS Middle School is a teaching practice location for students of foreign language teacher education major and is expected to provide junior high school students with a wealth of knowledge, foster such good characteristics as kindness and honesty, self-respect and responsibility; and form the essential intellectual-physical-artistic capacities for them to reach out further in life.
The High School for Gifted Students in Social Sciences and Humanities was established as the fourth high school of VNU in addition to the HUS High School for Gifted Students, Foreign Language Specialized School and High School of Education Science. Together with the teaching of high-quality general education subjects, the school focuses on the education of kindness in life as well as prepares human resources of social sciences and humanities for the country.
OPENING NEW MAJORS TO MEET SOCIAL NEEDS
In 2019, VNU continued to develop interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary training programs and majors to train high quality human resources to meet the requirements of the 4.0 revolution. In 2019, VNU issued 27 new training programs including 22 undergraduate programs, 03 master programs and 02 doctoral programs, including Education Quality Management, Education Technology Management, School Consultation, Educational Science, Natural Science Pedagogy (VNU University of Education); Japanese Studies (VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities); Agricultural Technology, Control and Automation Technology (VNU University of Engineering and Technology); Water Resources and Environment (VNU University of Science); Medical Testing Technology, Medical Imaging Technology (VNU School of Medicine and Pharmacy); Technology and Business Administration (VNU School of Business and Management) and International Trade Law (VNU School of Law), etc., were opened and began recruiting students in 2019.
In 2019, for the first time, a doctoral training program in Buddhism was launched in Vietnam’s education system at Tran Nhan Tong Institute, showing the vision and competency of VNU in expressing the educational philosophy oriented towards comprehensive human development. This is an elaborate training program with the participation of many reputable scientists, experts and monks in and outside Vietnam to promote the essence of Buddhism in contemporary society.
In 2019, VNU School of Medicine and Pharmacy established 08 new departments, aiming to develop into a university of medicine. The deans of those departments are leading experts in the field of medicine working at central hospitals.
IMPORTANT SCIENCE FORUMS ORGANIZED
On May 20, 2019, the Conference on "Vietnam’s Education and Training in the transition period in response to the fourth industrial revolution: Problems and solutions" was co-organized by VNU and the Central Theoretical Council to provide arguments and scientific bases for the orientation of and strategy for the development of education and training in Vietnam, contributing to the drafting of the documents submitted to the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam. VNU also cooperated with the Central Economic Committee to hold a scientific seminar on "Research results of the Program of Science and Technology for sustainable development in the Northwest region for a review of the 15-year implementation of Resolution 37-NQ/TW”.
VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities in collaboration with Lomonosov Moscow State University (the Russian Federation) and Columbia University (the United States) organized two international conferences on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's testament. These two important conferences helped affirm the international value of President Ho Chi Minh's ideology and VNU's capability to integrate into the world academically.
The YSI Asia Convening 2019, co-organized by VNU University of Economics and Business and the Young Scholars Initiative (YSI), attracted more than 500 Vietnamese and international scientists to meet, exchange, discuss and inspire on economics. The Global Partnership of Asian Colleges 2019 (GPAC 2019), held at VNU, attracted nearly 200 students and lecturers from 07 prestigious universities of the region to discuss and propose economic strategies and policies on the topic of "Digital Economies in Asia".
From October 16 to 18, 2019, VNU University of Foreign Languages and International Studies held the 6th International Testing Conference on the theme of "Language Assessment: Theory, Policies and Practice". The conference was a forum to share innovation efforts in response to the current language-testing situations in Vietnam as well as in other countries.
POSITIVE CHANGES TO THE VNU HOA LAC CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION INVESTMENT PROJECT
The year 2019 has brought about a number of positive changes to the VNU HoaLac Campus Construction Investment project. The Government and the Ministry of Construction have approved many guidelines and decisions on the project in accordance with the overall development strategy of VNU up to 2025, with a vision to 2035.
Specifically, in 2019, the Government approved the main sources of the project’s finance, such as investment capital from the 2016 to 2020 State budget reserve; loan capital from the World Bank to invest in a number of vital and urgent projects; special financial regulations and Japanese ODA loans for VNU Vietnam - Japan University.
The Ministry of Construction has appraised and approved the core adjustment of the VNU project’s Hoa Lac zoning plan of 1/2,000 scale to include Tran Nhan Tong Institute; the Ministry of Construction has also approved the detailed construction plan of 1/500 scale for a number of component projects including the University of Education, University of Technology and Engineering, International School, Science and Technology Application and Transfer Cooperation Zone within the acreage for VNC2 institutes and research centres, etc.
Organization of the Topping out ceremony of Building HT1 in Zone 4 - the first structure under VNU-HUS construction investment project in Hoa Lac.
INDIVIDUALS AND TEAMS HONOURED
The year 2019 continues to recognize a large number of prestigious science awards for VNU’s scientists and students.
On July 6th, 2019, PLOS Biology journal published a list of the world's top 100,000 scientists with the highest scientific citations, equivalent to 1.4% of the 7 million scientists worldwide, to include three scientists from VNU, namely Prof. Dr.Sc. Nguyen Dinh Duc, Prof. Dr. Pham Hung Viet and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hoang Son.
On November 15th, 2019, Prof. Dr. Le Ngoc Thanh and Prof. Dr. Tran Binh Giang - VNU School of Medicine and Pharmacy, received two first prizes at the 2019 Vietnamese Talent Awards in the field of Medicine - Pharmacy for the science projects: “Applied research on laparoscopic surgery in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases" and "Applied research on Endoscopic surgical advances to treat abdominal diseases”, respectively.
In 2019, a group of application-oriented basic research and training projects on "Waste treatment and utilization technology – Analysis and evaluation of environmental quality" helped a team of female
lecturers from the Department of Environmental Technology, Faculty of Environment Science, VNU University of Science win the Kovalevskaia Award.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi My Loc - VNU University of Education, one of the 10 individuals with outstanding achievements in all areas of life, won the 2019 Vietnamese Women’s Award for her positive contributions to the development of society.
Also in 2019, the contestants from VNU won numerous international medals including 02 Gold medals, 06 Silver medals and 03 Bronze medals at the International Olympiads; 15 Gold medals at the Asian and regional Olympiads.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION TO BOOST CREATIVE INNOVATIONS
Along with the implementation of many international cooperation projects (such as VIETNAMICA and VIBE) to upgrade the quality of training and enhance capacity and resources for the development of VNU and its affiliates, the internationalization of VNU is reinforced through a series of seminars with the participation of such international experts as Vice President of Chung-Ang University (South Korea) Jun Hyun Hong; President of Georgia State University (USA) Mark Becker; Prof. Suzi Jarvis and Dr. Colman Farrell from the Innovation Academy, the University College Dublin (Ireland), etc.
In 2019, VNU attended the Roundtable Conference of Presidents of Asia-Pacific Universities held on the occasion of the 120th foundation anniversary of the Far Eastern Federal University (the Russian Federation); VNU also worked, explored cooperation opportunities and signed cooperation agreements with several higher education institutions of the Russian Federation, contributing to the nourishing of the Comprehensively Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and the Russian Federation, not only for the sake of the two countries’ peoples, but also for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.
Also in 2019, VNU continued to affirm its key role as an active member in the following international organizations: the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, the ASEAN University Network (AUN), Francophonie University Association (AUF), etc. by proactively attending annual activities, meetings, conferences/ seminars, policy forums, action plans, cooperation programs, and international student forums and exchanges.
VNU’S MEMBER UNITS’ TRADITIONAL DAYS’ COMMEMORATIONS
The year 2019 has been a year full of VNU’s affiliates’ activities in commemoration of their establishment and/or development traditions. January 5th, 2019 was the 15th anniversary of the establishment of VNU Institute of Vietnamese Studies and Development Sciences and its 30 years of traditions. Over the past 15 years, the Institute has been continuously striving to foster a bridge for academic and cultural exchanges with its foreign partners; directly contributing to the training of new generations for the global Vietnamese Studies community.
On March 1st, 2019, VNU National Defense and Security Training Centre celebrated the 15th anniversary of its establishment to mark its full growth in both training scale and quality with prideful achievements.
On April 26th, 2019, VNU Physical Education and Sports Centre celebrated the 10th anniversary of its foundation, marking the full growth of a leading unit in the field of physical education among all the country’s universities.
On November 9th, 2019, ULIS Foreign Language Specialized School celebrated the 50th anniversary of its foundation. As a place to cultivate talents of foreign languages for the country, in recent years, ULIS Foreign Language Specialized School has always been in the top of high schools with the highest national high school graduation examination scores, and from 98% to 100% of its students have been admitted to the first intake at the country’s top higher education institutions.
On November 16th, 2019, VNU University of Education celebrated the 20th anniversary of its foundation and development. Over the past 20 years, the University has achieved results in training and scientific research, expanding its international network and contributing to the national education development cause.
Also on November 16th, 2019, VNU University of Economics and Business held a meeting to celebrate its 45-year tradition and launch the university’s Alumni Association. That was an opportunity for the teachers and students of the University to review the journey of its construction, development and growth as a dynamic university, with a creative vision, proper development orientation towards quality and efficiency.
On November 20th, 2019, VNU University of Engineering and Technology organized a get-together of generations of faculty members on the occasion of its 15th anniversary of its establishment and 20 years of traditions. Over the past 20 years, the University has always linked training activities with scientific research, application transfer and development of new training programs, creative innovations and entrepreneurship.
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