Addressing the conference, Vietnamese Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said that the building and operating of the University Performance Metrics was very meaningful. As a data and analysis centre, UPM can provide consultation for the national university system as well as local and regional higher education institutions. Higher education institutions can use UPM to assess their own performance and use it a tool for strategic management, brand development and partnership development. Learners have accurate information about universities to decide on suitable institutions and majors. Employers have the basis to plan personnel strategy, recruitment and knowledge transfer cooperation.

Speaking at the ceremony, VNU President Nguyen Kim Son stated that VNU always strived towards excellent education quality and quality culture. In its journey to execute its national mission and responsibility, especially in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, VNU continuously pushes itself beyond its limits and traditional missions with the entrepreneurial spirit, innovation orientation, student mobility, personalized education and digital transformation. Therefore, VNU strongly supports research to promote the conventional values of a leading higher education institution in Vietnam. 

With support from the Ministry of Education and Training and the National Science and Education Program, a team of VNU scientists led by Prof. Nguyen Huu Duc, has succeeded in defining university adaptability to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and in building the metrics for measuring that adaptability. One of the team’s main results is the University Performance Metrics, which will be introduced and further discussed by the passionate and knowledgeable researchers from VNU during the conference.

Addressing the conference online, Dr. Choltis Dhirathiti - AUN Executive Director, said that the AUN Secretariat strongly supported UPM because it had opened up a new approach to higher education quality comparison with 8 groups of metrics and 54 highly comprehensive indicators. UPM can provide reliable information for benchmarking and assessing the quality of a university in a holistic way. Such information is useful for universities not only to govern their quality and objectives, but also to make decisions about their cooperation partners. That information is also very important for learners in choosing suitable higher education institutions, especially under the current constantly increasing student mobility and overseas study demands.

With confidence and high appreciation, the AUN Secretariat is pleased to introduce UPM to the universities in the ASEAN community. Up to now, more than 10 universities in the region have willingly participated, among those, five universities have submitted all the required data which have been validated, assessed and rated with stars by UPM. AUN is also notified that more than 20 Vietnamese universities have participated in this UPM ranking.

The conference delegates discussed the vision and strategy of education institutions based on the indicators of technology revolution 4.0 and sustainable development; The implementation of university governance based on output products and social impact assessment; The need of University Councils’ and university leaders’ strategic thinking about digital foundation and the 4.0 era; The building of an education ecosystem and a data management platform; The building of an internal quality assurance system towards university governance, approaching outcome benchmarks; Matching quality to improve quality, closely connected with external quality assurance.