1. OPENING CEREMONY OF VNU’S FIRST ACADEMIC YEAR ON HOA LAC CAMPUS AND THE ASPIRATION FOR A MODERN UNIVERSITY TOWN

The year 2022 marked a turning point for Hoa Lac-based VNU town as VNU’s headquarters and some of its members and affiliates officially started work, teach and study here.

The opening ceremony of the 2022 – 2023 academic year, held in Hoa Lac on October 23, 2022, was attended by Politburo member, Permanent Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Thanh Man; leaders of ministries and sectors, and especially a large number of VNU officials, lecturers, former officials, school students, and undergraduates. This event marked the end of the three-hundred-day campaign to create the conditions for welcoming students to study at VNU Hoa Lac campus. This was also a significant event marking the commencement of VNU’s first academic year in Hoa Lac. This event also has historical importance for the goal of moving all VNU's universities and training institutions to Hoa Lac to create a new space - a green, clean, wonderful, smart, and innovative university town.

Early on, VNU's Board of Presidents had moved to work regularly at VNU Hoa Lac headquarters since March 2022.

On May 19, 2022, VNU’s headquarters was relocated to its Hoa Lac campus. It laid an essential ground to readily welcome 2,000 first-year students of VNU University of Education, Vietnam - Japan University, and International School to study and reside, along with almost 6,000 VNU students taking courses in physical education, and national defense and security at Hoa Lac campus.

In the first and second quarters of 2022, VNU completed and put into use lecture halls, classrooms, laboratories, etc.… in Buildings HT1, HT2, Zone 4 Dormitory, Library, and VNU administration compound. VNU's Board of Presidents has started regular work at Hoa Lac headquarters since March 2022. Along with investing in building essential utility structures to serve upcoming students' learning and working activities, VNU and its partners have been actively planting trees to green 165 hectares.

On July 29, 2022, VNU inaugurated the first lecture hall within HT1 - HT2 complexes located at VNU Hoa Lac campus with a total floor area of 35,000m2 and 300 working rooms and lecture halls for 4,000 students, lecturers to study and work.

To best meet the essential needs of lecturers and students when studying and working at Hoa Lac campus, the relevant units mobilized all resources to complete the work on organization, personnel, training, scientific research, finance, facilities, equipment, learning materials, development cooperation, information technology infrastructure, student dormitories, and many other associated components. In 2022, in consultation with VNU President, many of VNU’s affiliated units moved their offices to Hoa Lac.

In 2022, implementing the decision of VNU Party Committee’s Standing Board and VNU’s Board of Presidents, a number of VNU’s affiliated units moved their administrative offices to Hoa Lac.

2. PROMULGATING MANY SUPPORTIVE POLICIES FOR LECTURERS, ACADEMIC STAFF AND STUDENTS

In 2022, VNU issued a number of supportive policies with many integrated international advantages for lecturers, researchers, and young scientists to motivate VNU’s scientists as well as to attract other scientists, especially highly qualified young faculty, to work for VNU.

With the relocation of its headquarters to Hoa Lac campus, VNU issued a legal document requesting its member units to study, propose and implement regimes and policies for officials and employees working at VNU Hoa Lac headquarters.

Along with that, VNU has come up with a financial support policy for young academic staff. This is one of the breakthrough policies to increase income for young scientists to keep their minds on lecturing and scientific research to raise the quantity and quality of research products, contributing to increasing VNU’s innovation indicators.

On May 10, 2022, VNU launched a healthcare project for professors under Decision No. 1485/QD-DHQGHN. Accordingly, the project’s overall goal is to pilot taking care of and improving the health of professors working at VNU until the end of 2025. After being assessed and evaluated, the named project’s results will be replicated in an overall VNU scientists’ Healthcare policy.

With the orientation of developing science and technology and creating momentum to improve sustainable development indicators, VNU has issued many mechanisms and policies to appoint and remunerate scientists, such as the Regulation on Intellectual Property Management at VNU; the Guidelines on developing and incentivizing strong research groups; the Policy to support international publication; Regulations on accreditation, management, and development of key laboratories/research centres at VNU level, … VNU's policies focus on “stretching” and providing resources for research groups with well-published research and key national science and technology programs.

In addition, VNU Framework for Teaching Excellence was built to support and assess the development of teaching competence for lecturers at VNU and to help them update and apply pedagogical principles and modern teaching methods in teaching activities to ensure the quality of teaching and learning in the context of higher education innovation.

In the 2022-2023 academic year, VNU started piloting fully-funded scholarships for students of 18 basic sciences from VNU University of Science and VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities to attract good and excellent students to participate in VNU's Scientist Incubation Project to cultivate human resources for higher education levels, as well as scientific staff in the future.

Most recently, VNU has issued the Regulations on the VNU Teacher of the Year Award and prizes for teaching innovation. The award aims to recognize and honour teachers with outstanding achievements in teaching, scientific research, contribution, initiative, and effort to improve the quality of training and promote the implementation of VNU's pioneering role in reforming Vietnam's higher education and socioeconomic development.

3. ESTABLISHING VNU UNIVERSITY OF LAW AND FURTHER COMPLETING THE MULTI-SECTIONAL AND MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

On September 23, 2022, the University of Law was established by being upgraded from VNU School of Law under Decision No. 1124/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister as VNU’s 9th member university. The establishment of VNU University of Law will contribute to the completion of VNU’s development model and the improvement of the efficiency and quality of law training and research activities in Vietnam, meeting the requirements of high-quality human resources in legal science and serving the process of international integration and country development in a new context.

On November 9, 2022, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 1376/QD-TTg on transferring the Construction Hospital under the Ministry of Construction to Vietnam National University, Hanoi. According to the decision, the Construction Hospital will be reorganized into VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital. The reorganization of the Construction Hospital into VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital is to promote practical training, applied research, and technology transfer in the field of Medicine - Biology – Pharmacology, as well as the capability to provide health care services, medical examination, and treatment.

On November 25, 2022, VNU President met with the leaders of VNU School of Interdisciplinary Studies and VNU International Francophone Institute to discuss the two units' future orientation and development strategy. VNU Board of Presidents agreed to the direction to develop VNU – IFI towards the model of an affiliated school to become an International Francophone School carrying the mission to connect VNU with the Francophone community; and to develop VNU School of Interdisciplinary Studies with a focus on creative and artistic interdisciplinary fields based on the tradition and multidisciplinary strengths.

On August 16, 2022, VNU Party Committee’s Standing Board approved the process and procedures for establishing and consolidating member university councils on the principle of democratic centralism while ensuring compliance with the current laws and the specific characteristics of VNU as well as its member universities.

On August 15, 2022, VNU President signed Decision No. 2719/QD-DHQGHN on establishing the Department of Investment Promotion as a functional department of VNU. The Department of Investment Promotion has the function of counseling and assisting VNU President in implementing investment promotion activities; mobilizing funding; attracting private capital and public-private partnership projects; appraising and submitting the investment policies and public-private partnership projects to VNU President for approval in accordance with the State’s laws and VNU’s regulations; coordinating with relevant functional departments to develop a business system at VNU.

4. TRAINING BREAKTHROUGHS IN RESPONSE TO THE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TREND AND THE NEED FOR NATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCES

The year 2022 was the first year when VNU concurrently developed and promulgated VNU's training regulations at all levels, ensuring consistency with the Ministry of Education and Training’s regulations, consolidating and improving the training quality and the integration with international standards; further completed the credit-based training, developing module-based programs, paying special attention to typical training characteristics, such as VNU’s a+b training model, individualized training, talent training, pilot training programs and unique training models; devolving and decentralizing between VNU and training units, while ensuring the interconnection and unity under the motto "OneVNU” prioritizing quality criterion.

VNU Party Committee Executive Board’s Conclusion No. 223-KL/DU dated August 4, 2022, on further implementing Program No. 148-Ctr/DU, dated April 5, 2021, of VNU’s term VI Party Committee on “high-quality talent training program”, clearly stated that VNU focuses on prioritizing critical investments using VNU’s budget and private sources to develop talent training programs in all academic disciplines; further promotes the development of talented and high-quality training programs in the direction of attracting private participation, collecting tuition fees based on economic-technical norms according to the schedule of fully and precisely calculating training costs to improve the quality of training, meet the requirements of the labour market, develop made-to-order talented and high-quality training programs for organizations and enterprises;  renovates the structure of the training programs towards improving knowledge, raising output standards, strengthening the innovation of teaching methods towards individualization, training closely linked with research, practice, internship, etc.

In 2022, VNU opened several interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary undergraduate programs to provide high-quality human resources for society. These training programs include Artificial Intelligence (VNU University of Engineering Technology); Construction Engineering, Smart and Sustainable Agriculture (VNU Vietnam - Japan University); Smart and Sustainable Urban Management, Leisure and Events Management (VNU School of Interdisciplinary Studies). The past year was also the first time VNU piloted a combined model of bachelor's and master's training. Three training programs of VNU International School were selected to pilot this model: Financial Technology and Digital Business, Applied Information Technology, and Logistics and Industrial Systems Engineering. This training model allows learners to get a master's degree sooner by transferring to the relevant master’s level.

The year 2022 was also the first time  VNU organized a High school Olympiad in 7 foreign languages, Literature, History, and Geography for candidates within VNU and beyond.

VNU developed the project "Attracting and training students from southern Vietnam at VNU" to increase the number of students from different regions and to train human resources for VNU’s cooperative localities, thereby contributing to building high-quality human resources to serve the requirements of rapid economic, cultural, and social development of provinces in the region.

5. BOOSTING SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION ACTIVITIES

On February 8, 2022, VNU issued the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for the 2021 – 2030 period. This important legal document helps boost VNU’s science and technology to a higher level and is a strategic breakthrough to develop VNU into a smart and innovative university.

On September 20, 2022, VNU issued Decision No. 3149/QD-DHQGHN regulating the management of VNU’s science and technology tasks. Accordingly, the document specifies the criteria and process for determining, selecting, approving, and assigning scientific and technological tasks; organizing the implementation, evaluation, acceptance, and product management of scientific and technological tasks, etc.

In the past year, VNU organized many conferences and seminars to recommend measures to implement the VNU’s Science, Technology and Innovation: Science, Technology and Innovation Conference 2022; VNU cooperated with the Steering Committee for summarizing Resolution 54-NQ/TW to organize a seminar on "Developing culture, society, science and technology and protecting the environment in the Red River Delta up to 2030, vision to 2045”; VNU coordinated with the Ministry of Science and Technology to organize the seminar on "Supportive policies for searching, technology connection and innovation"; VNU in collaboration with the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences and VNU-HCMC organized the 2nd Annual conference on the development of science, technology, innovation, and human resources in 2022.

These activities allowed VNU scientific community and managers to exchange, share experiences and propose solutions to promote scientific, technological, and innovation activities; connect and cooperate with businesses and research units to solve major national problems and increase the contribution of science and technology to socio-economic development.

In 2022, VNU further prioritized resources to conduct key national science and technology programs; strengthened cooperation with partners to implement S&T tasks to serve local development needs, and transferred research results to businesses.

In 2022, VNU continued coordinating with several units inside and outside VNU to organize the contest "VNU Startup Ideas – Innovation 2022” to create an environment for VNU’s undergraduates, graduates and lecturers flexibly apply their learned knowledge, research and teaching results to practice.

6. DIVERSE AND PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION ACTIVITIES

On January 10, 2022, in witness of Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and his Lao counterpart Phankham Viphavanh, VNU President Le Quan and Lao Minister of Education and Sports Phout Simmalavong handed over the co-operation document between the two sides on the implementation of the project to build a Center for Scientific Research and Training at National University of Laos. This is the first time a higher education institution has been assigned as the owner of a project using Vietnam's aid for the Lao Government. The project is a typical work for the partnership in education, training and scientific research between VNU and the National University of Laos in particular, as well as affirming the special friendship between Vietnam and Laos in general.

The Executive Board of VNU Entrepreneur Alumni Club was established under Decision No. 1892/QĐ-ĐHQGHN dated June 8, 2022. In the spirit of "Joining hands for development", the Alumni Club will be the place to connect generations of VNU’s alumni - intellectual entrepreneurs to accompany and contribute to the development of VNU.

VNU always affirms its position and brand of the leading university in Vietnam through receiving and exchanging cooperation with many international partners, including Irish Secretary of State Anne Rabbitte; Irish Ambassador to Vietnam John McCullagh; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Vietnam Yamada Taiko; Special Advisor to the Japan Friendship Parliamentary Alliance Takebe Tsutomu; General Director of the Southeast Asia Department of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Hataeda Mikio; the National University of Laos delegation; the delegation of the Polytechnic University of Hauts-de-France; the delegation of the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), among others.

As a member of the AUN Steering Committee, UMAP Executive Board, AUF Board of Directors, etc., VNU has always shown high responsibility in international networks and organizations; participated actively and proactively in promoting bilateral and multilateral cooperation within the network as well as contributed to promoting the internationalization of higher education in the region, in Vietnam and at VNU.

VNU continued to promote the implementation of international cooperation projects to contribute to improving the quality of training, research, capacity building and resources attracting for the development of VNU including VIBE Project, PHER project, Laos project, World Bank project, etc.

In 2022, 12 editions of VNU’s Newsletter on Cooperation and Development (e-Newsletter) were published monthly online. The Newsletter gathers special activities of VNU and its affiliates, disseminates legal documents, new policies as well as opportunities to participate in international cooperation programs and projects.

Training activities, capacity building, skill enhancement and connection among staff working in development and cooperation field at VNU’s units were also promoted. In 2022, VNU organized 3 training and networking conferences, not only for the cooperation and development managers at VNU, but also for those from VNU, Ho Chi Minh City and the University of Da Nang. The conferences contributed to improving the management capacity of development cooperation, enhancing skills and connections, contributing to exploiting VNU's multi-disciplinary advantages as well as opening up new opportunities and prospects for further cooperation.

7. ENHANCING VNU’S NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

In 2022, VNU continued to demonstrate its national responsibility through chairing and implementing key research programs, namely the Vietnam National Gazetteer project, the Centre for Vietnamese Studies documents project, the Translation and Promotion of the Quintessence of Oriental Classics project; formulating and preparing for the implementation of the national-level key program for attracting investments in socio-economic development of coastal provinces.

VNU effectively participated in policy consulting for central agencies such as the Central Economic Commission, the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Education and Training, and in coordination with the Ministry of Science and Technology proposed pilot policies to create motivation for commercialization to quickly apply public investment research results to production and business activities.

VNU also promoted cooperation and made-to-order science and technology transfer to contribute to the socio-economic development of the localities. Specifically, VNU joined the building of digital governance maps for Hoa Binh province, Quang Ninh province; took part in dealing with seafood epidemics in Ca Mau province; built local gazetteers for Nam Dinh and Quang Ninh provinces, among others.

With its pioneering position in the national education system as well as its development orientation following the model of an advanced, multi-disciplinary research university, VNU always pays due attention to closely linking its training, research with knowledge transfer activities. On June 29, 2022, VNU President signed Decision No. 2188/QĐ-ĐHQGHN approving the establishing of VNU Industry Collaboration Hub. The Hub was established to concretize the guidelines and policies of the Party and State and implement the development strategy of VNU until 2030, vision to 2045, in which priorities are given to economy, culture, society and human development in general and the business ecosystem in particular.

Also in 2022, VNU launched the Channel for teaching the Vietnamese language to overseas Vietnamese, hosted by VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities within the framework of the Day for Honouring the Vietnamese Language in Overseas Vietnamese Communities (September 8 yearly). The launching of the Channel for teaching the Vietnamese language to overseas Vietnamese helps spread the Vietnamese language teaching and learning, raise awareness and responsibility of the whole society to honour, preserve and promote the purity, and the value of the national language.

8. PIONEERING IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE COOPERATION IN EDUCATION

On December 10, 2022, VNU held the 2022 Investment Promotion Conference to attract resources and call for investment in VNU’s construction, teaching and research activities under the direction of the Prime Minister on a “5-in-1” university town model. The Investment Promotion Conference 2022 is an opportunity for VNU to introduce its public-private partnership projects (PPP), a legal framework, mechanisms and policies for different types of investment.

To date, VNU has compiled a list of PPP projects for the period of 2022 - 2025, including a centre for research and development, a centre for training high-quality human resources in technological banking and finance, an international standard hospital, a dormitory compound, a multi-grade school, a commercial service complex, among others.

4 priority areas of VNU in promoting investment with businesses include Information technology, High-tech agriculture and sustainable development, Health Science, Training and developing high quality human resources. In addition, VNU has a policy of establishing research centres in cooperation with enterprises to deploy a variety of cooperation fields. The use of PPP and PPP project formulation will promote not only the capacity of the private sector to provide financing, but also its ability to foster innovation and operations.

The 2022 Investment Promotion Conference is also an occasion to connect domestic and foreign investors who are interested in investing in education & training, science & technology, promoting investment in developing a worthy university urban area. Besides, through the 2022 Investment Promotion Conference, VNU introduced its science and technology potentials, scientific and technological products; key products of businesses, provinces and localities to promote cooperation and investment projects linked to technology transfer among VNU’s partner businesses and localities; and among universities and research institutes.

9. MAINTAINING POSITION AND INCREASING PRESTIGE INTERNATIONALLY

In 2022, according to the QS World University Rankings, VNU won the Recognition of Improvement Award – an award given to institutions for their significant improvements in rating results based on the improvement in their average ranks. VNU is the first Vietnamese higher education institution presented with this award.

In 2022, Quacquarelli Symonds released the edition of the QS World University Rankings (QS WUR 2023). Accordingly, VNU featured among the world’s top 1000 for the fifth consecutive time. Ranked by indicator, VNU continued to show its prestige in both Academic & Employer reputation. Also, according to QS, VNU was ranked 162nd, listed in the top 21.3% of Asia's leading higher education institutions, and 36th in Southeast Asia. VNU’s six academic disciplines ranked by QS WUR by subject 2022 include Computer Science and Information Systems (Group 501-550 globally); Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering (Group 451-500 globally); Mathematics (Group 351-400 globally); Physics and Astronomy (Group 451-500 globally); Business and Management Studies (451-500 globally); and Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Group 451-500 globally). Five of the six disciplines were listed in Group 500 globally; especially, Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, Business and Management Studies, were all ranked No. 1 in Vietnam; VNU’s Electrical and Electronic Engineering was ranked by QS for the first time.

According to Times Higher Education (THE), VNU maintained its ranking in 4 subjects as in the previous ranking, namely: Computer Sciences and Social Sciences (both in Group 601-800 globally); Engineering and Physic Sciences (both in Group 801-1000 globally). Also in this ranking, VNU had 2 more ranked subjects including Business and Economics, and Life Sciences (both in Group 501-600 globally).

Recently, the U.S. News & World Report (USA) has published the 2022 edition of the Best Global Universities Rankings. Accordingly, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU) was ranked 970th globally and 258th in Asia. Regarding the 13 indicators of the U.S. News & World Report’s ranking methodology, VNU’s Publications has significantly improved with an increase of 59 places compared to the 2022 ranking. Also in this ranking, VNU’s Engineering was ranked for the first time at 636th globally, and VNU’s Physics remained ranked 664th.

This year was also the first year when VNU was ranked 758th among the world’s top 800 universities according to Webometrics rankings by Cybermetrics Labs. In this ranking, VNU was up 186 places compared to its rank in January 2022, ranked 183rd in Asia and 14th in Southeast Asia.

10. INDIVIDUALS AND TEAMS HONOURED

According to U.S PLoS Biology on the ranking of citation influence among the scientific community, two scientists from VNU, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc and Assoc. Prof. Dr Le Hoang Son, continued to be listed among the world's 10,000 most influential scientists in 2022. By position, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hoang Son ranked 5,817th globally, Prof. Dr. Sc. Nguyen Dinh Duc ranked 7,455th globally. These two scientists were also named in the world ranking of reseach.com along with two other scientists from VNU, Prof. Dr. Pham Hung Viet and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tu Binh Minh.

Students from VNU HUS High School for Gifted Students participating in international Olympiads won 8 gold medals and 1 silver medal. In his letter of commendation to VNU HUS High School for Gifted Students and the Vietnamese students – the medal winners at the International Olympiads in 2022, President Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasized that those students were the pride of not only the education sector but also the nation; the students of VNU HUS High School for Gifted Students have proven the spirit and intelligence of the Vietnamese.

Dr. Chu Duc Ha - Lecturer of VNU University of Engineering and Technology received the Golden Globe Award 2022 in the Biotechnology field. The Golden Globe Award is co-awarded by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Vietnamese Teachers' Day on November 20, the Minister of Education and Training decided to award certificates of merit to 400 outstanding teachers and managers of educational institutions. VNU had 3 teachers honoured to receive this Certificate of Merit, namely, Prof. Dr. Mai Trong Nhuan - Chairman of VNU Education Quality Assurance Council, Prof. Dr. Sc. Nguyen Dinh Duc - Director of VNU Academic Affairs Department, and Prof. Dr. Le Ngoc Thanh - Rector of VNU University of Medicine and Pharmacy.

In 2022, two scientific works by VNU’s scientists, namely “Anti-colonialism movement in Vietnam” by late Prof. Dr. Dinh Xuan Lam and “Modern Vietnamese Poetry” by Prof. Dr. Le Van Lan (also known with his penname Ma Giang Lan) were awarded the State Prize in Science and Technology.

In the past year, many VNU individuals and teams have been honoured to receive noble awards from the Party and State: Prof. Dr. Nguyen Quang Ngoc, Prof. Dr. Sc Luu Van Boi, Prof. Dr. Pham Hung Viet, Prof. Dr. Le Ngoc Thanh and VNU Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union were awarded First-class Labour Orders; Prof. Dr. Sc Nguyen Dinh Duc was awarded the Second-class Labour Order; and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Truc Le, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Thanh Son from VNU University of Economics and Business, and VNU International School were awarded Third-class Labour Orders.