International cooperation in higher education contributes to promote scientific research, improve training quality, and increase job opportunities for students. However, there are still many barriers in the actual implementation of international cooperation in higher education.

The key to international integration

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu, UD’s President commented: "Resolution 29-NQ/TW on the fundamental and comprehensive innovation in education and training continues to consider education and training as a top national policy, investing in education is the investment development. In the past 10 years, education and training, especially higher education, has achieved many important results, and the quality of training and scientific research has increased; The Vietnamese higher education system is gradually approaching the global one, and many Vietnamese universities are named on prestigious international rankings”.

UD-University of Economics and Lincoln University (New Zealand)

signed a cooperation agreement in the student transfer program

From the "leverage" of international cooperation, UD has taken advantage of investment resources to strengthen facilities and improve university governance capacity. Over the past 10 years, UD has received tens of millions of dollars in funding/support from international organizations to invest in enhancing facilities and university research and administration capacity via huge projects.

The high effectiveness of UD's international cooperation activities is also demonstrated through its coordination with international partners to successfully organize many international conferences that attract hundreds of international scientists. The results of international cooperation have created breakthroughs in scientific research and training. UD regularly receives experts from partner higher education institutes to teach and do scientific research, as well as annually receiving hundreds of international students to study and do short-term internships.

In the academic year 2022 - 2023, UD’s member universities and affiliated units conducted more than 100 scientific and technological projects at all levels, bringing new results, knowledge, scientific products, and applications. UD published more than 500 scientific articles in prestigious international journals (WoS, Scopus, an increase of 8% compared to the previous academic year).

The ratio of international publications (WoS, Scopus) reached 0.6 articles/PhD; The level of scientific influence expressed through citation indexes on Google Scholar and H-Index increased nearly 2 times; Transferring and applying research results and products to localities, businesses and serving the community with a total budget of nearly 70 billion VND.

The external assessment of the training programs according to the ASIIN standard (Germany) at UD-University of Science and Technology

Undoing the knot from the policy

However, according to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Vu, higher education institutions also faced many difficulties and obstacles in international cooperation.

“The domestic procedure for receiving international funding is quite complicated and takes a long time. All Vietnamese higher education institutions have to submit documents including  the annual plan, assigning estimates, bidding plan according to current regulations... to get the approval  from the Ministry of Education and Training before receiving aid, These procedures take a lot of time while the project includes various foreign universities participating and implementing activities according to the fiscal year. Therefore, losing the opportunity to receive the project grant is easy to see, discouraging both the donor and the beneficiaries” - said Assoc. Prof. Dr.

According to the assessment of President Nguyen Ngoc Vu, attracting prestigious international scientists with extensive experience after retiring abroad to participate in teaching and research is greatly beneficial for all aspects. However, currently, higher education institutions cannot appoint scientific positions for foreign scientists due to being superannuated or requiring intermediate political qualifications like normal Vietnamese officials... There are also a lot of difficulties in applying for a work permit for international experts and volunteers.

President Nguyen Ngoc Vu also shared that UD- University of Science and Technology invited professors from partner schools to teach during their breaks between semesters/quarters or those who were on sabbatical breaks. UD-Vietnam - UK Institute of Research and Executive Education was also actively looking for several professors living and teaching in Southeast Asia or retired professors abroad, lecturers of a number of programs organized and sponsored by European Union in the form of short-term lecturer exchanges.

President Nguyen Ngoc Vu also wondered about the regulation that cadres cannot go abroad no more than 2 times a year, each period not exceeding 7 days, which can be applied to officers and lecturers at universities or not? This regulation is only suitable for officials going abroad with the State budget.

At universities, this is a huge obstacle because scientists need to travel abroad moreto promote cooperation in case they are  funded by projects or partner schools/organizations as well as to teach and do research which often take months to complete the research projects  

Internationalization of higher education is a common development trend of universities in the world and Vietnam. The positive aspects of internationalization can be seen as its role in building economic and social potential by promoting and improving the quality, helping scientific research to achieve international standards. With educational exchange programs, learners will have opportunities to experience global learning, promote integration, and increase job opportunities for students.