VZCZCXRO5517
OO RUEHDT RUEHPB
DE RUEHHM #1002/01 3121044
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O P 071044Z NOV 08
FM AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5120
INFO RUEHHI/AMEMBASSY HANOI PRIORITY 3418
RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY PRIORITY 5349
RUCNARF/ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 HO CHI MINH CITY 001002 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MLS, USAID/ANE, EEB/TPP/BTA/ANA, OES/STC 
USAID/ANE/EAA FOR FRANK DONOVAN 
STATE PASS USTR FOR BISBEE 
USDOC FOR 4431/MAC/AP/OPB/VLC/HPPHO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON ETRD TBIO SOCI PGOV PREL VM
SUBJECT: AMIDST MUDDLED POLICIES, STAFFDEL ATKINS FINDS SOLID SCIENCE 
RESEARCH IN PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS 
 
HO CHI MIN 00001002  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary. Bureaucratic mismanagement, insufficient and 
misdirected funding, and lack of university autonomy have 
stymied both scientific research and science education in 
Vietnam, according to government officials, non-government 
organizations and private sector experts.  Nevertheless, House 
Science and Technology Committee Staff Director Chuck Atkins 
found that targeted public-private partnerships in Ho Chi Minh 
City have already created centers of research and teaching 
excellence.  While Vietnam's leaders call science and technology 
the 'shortcut to development', unless the governance and funding 
reforms these centers of excellence represent spread nation 
wide, Vietnam will not produce enough knowledge workers to 
support the big new hi-tech investors (such as Intel) or to 
modernize Vietnam.  End summary. 
 
Crisis in Science Research and Education 
---------------------------------------- 
¶2. (SBU) Vietnam produces exceptionally low numbers of patents 
and international scientific papers, even for a developing 
country.  Several interlocutors told staffdel Atkins that in 
2006, international patent offices did not grant a single patent 
to Vietnamese researchers, in contrast to 26,292 patents awarded 
to China researchers and 158 patents awarded to Thai 
researchers.  Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology 
researchers published just 41 articles in international journals 
while Shanghai's Fudan University researchers published 2,286 
articles. 
 
With Main Street Consequences 
----------------------------- 
¶3. (SBU) Vietnamese universities also fail to educate scientists 
and engineers to the level of proficiency required by most 
top-flight multinational high-tech companies.  Intel is in the 
process of investing $1.3 billion in an assembly and test 
facility under construction in HCMC.  The Intel Vietnam General 
Manger told the staffdel he was only able to identify 45 
candidates meeting Intel standards, despite interviewing 2,000 
engineering graduates from Vietnam's top technical universities. 
 Although Intel still hopes to hire over 700 Vietnamese 
engineers at salaries of $500 per month, the GM said Intel will 
bring in expat engineers at a cost of $300,000 per year each if 
the local talent pool proves insufficient. 
 
Reshuffling Does Not Equal Reform 
--------------------------------- 
¶4. (SBU) Higher education in Vietnam was based on a Soviet-like 
model, with scientific research being conducted at state 
institutes, as opposed to universities.  The Ministry of 
Education and Training (MOET) is attempting to overcome this 
stove-piping by strengthening academic research and assigning a 
greater teaching role to the nation's research institutes.  The 
Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) is Vietnam's 
primary government research organization, with more than 3000 
scientists at 28 research institutes.  VAST officials described 
to staffdel a MOET proposal to create an elite research 
university -- to be named the Hanoi University of Science and 
Technology -- staffed with VAST researchers as a positive first 
step. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Not everyone agrees.  Vice-Minister Tran Quoc Thang of 
the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) is responsible for 
national science policy and administers over $400 million in 
science and technology funding.  Thang told the staffdel he 
thought creating a new university from VAST, which would 
significantly enhance MOET's jurisdiction and resources at 
MOST's expense, a "very bad idea".  He instead proposed 
transferring responsibility for science education to MOST from 
MOET "as it is done in France in Germany" as the best way to 
improve the quality of science education. 
 
¶6. (SBU) Many outside the GVN consider MOST to be a much more 
capable organization than MOET, and believe granting it more say 
over science education would improve quality.  Others remain 
skeptical. One education specialist stated that since most 
Vietnamese research institutes appear incapable of conducting 
meaningful research (as shown by lack of publications and 
patents) and Vietnamese universities are unable to effectively 
train scientists, bureaucratic reshuffling promises little in 
the way of actual reform. 
 
New Agency to Hopes to Break out of the Rut 
------------------------------------------- 
¶7. (SBU) On a brighter note, the GVN recently established a 
small but independent Vietnam National Science Foundation (VNSF) 
to competitively allocate a portion of Vietnam's research 
 
HO CHI MIN 00001002  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
funding.  In Vietnam, research funding has largely been 
allocated on the basis of seniority, said VNSF director Phan 
Hong Son, adding that his priority is to reach young university 
researchers through a publicly announced, competitive, 
peer-reviewed process open to all universities or research 
agencies.  Son also highlighted the contributions of the U.S. 
National Science Foundation, which has offered to review grant 
proposals, and the University of Missouri which will conduct a 
research proposal writing workshop for Vietnamese scientists in 
January. 
 
¶8. (SBU) The young, energetic head of this newly created 
foundation said he hopes to begin distributing the first grants 
from its initial US $13 million budget later this year.  Son 
added that the sum involved is insufficient to set up 
laboratories or purchase instrumentation, but indicates that 
some in the GVN understand that the inefficient resource 
allocation system currently in place is holding back research in 
Vietnam. 
 
Public Private Partnerships Power Centers of Excellence 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
¶9. (SBU) At a gleaming facility set among the wide boulevards of 
Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP), the head of SHTP Research 
Laboratories described cutting edge research in nanotechnology, 
precision mechanics, and biotechnology being conducted by the 14 
Vietnamese researchers there.  The lab's state of the art 
instrumentation, ranging from nuclear magnetic resonance 
spectrometers to scanning electron microscopes -- worthy of any 
major U.S. research university -- was funded by an $11.5 million 
start-up grant from the HCMC People's Committee.  Operating 
funds are provided by the corporate tenants of the park as well 
as U.S. venture capital funds that have invested in specific 
projects with high commercial potential. 
 
¶10. (SBU) The HCMC Department of Science and Technology (DOST) 
told the staffdel that the city devotes two percent of its 
annual budget to support 200 R&D projects in 16 areas, 
prioritizing information technology, materials science, 
industrial automation and biotech.  In contrast, MoST estimates 
Vietnamese companies spend one to two percent of their revenue 
on research and development.  The city also provides major 
laboratory funding to those grantees that generate especially 
promising initial results, such as USD 10 million recently 
allocated to a stem cell research group at the city's University 
of Natural Sciences.  (Comment:  While HCMC has been doing so 
since 1985, allocating two percent of provincial budgets to 
support science became a national mandate in 2000 under 
Vietnam's Science and Technology Law -- another example of HCMC 
pioneering national policy.  End comment.) 
 
The Solution Starts with the Schools 
------------------------------------ 
¶11. (SBU) Across town, in a spartan classroom adorned with 
posters warning students to communicate in English or risk a one 
dollar fine, Chancellor Van Sau Nguyen of the Saigon Institute 
of Technology (SIT) explained to staffdel that although HCMC 
authorities provide the school with rent-free facilities, SIT 
supports itself primarily by charging USD 45 per credit hour 
tuition fees for IT, marketing, and accounting courses (taught 
in English) that are identical to those offered by their 
affiliate, Houston Community Colleges.  He noted that although 
the bill for a three year Associate of Applied Sciences Degree 
adds up to a hefty US USD 3000, almost quadruple Vietnam's 
average per capita income in 2007, SIT receives many more 
applicants than it can enroll.  Also crucial, SIT is not 
required to teach Marxist philosophy, which comprises 25 percent 
of the curriculum in most Vietnamese universities. 
 
Tight GVN Control Stifles National Universities 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
¶12.  (SBU) In contrast to the relative autonomy enjoyed by 
foreign-affiliated technical colleges such as SIT, HCMC 
University of Technology (HCMCUT) Vice-Rector Phan Dinh Tuan 
described his institution as tightly controlled by the central 
government, unable to promote professors, compete for students 
or raise tuition above the current level of approximately USD 9 
per credit hour without MOET approval.  The vice-rector noted 
that low tuition fees, along with regulatory strictures that 
made it difficult for a national institution such as HCMCUT to 
accept funding from the local government or corporate donors 
left the university unable to upgrade its research laboratory 
infrastructure.  This, along with the increasing availability of 
stipends to study overseas, made it difficult to attract Ph.D. 
candidates to its 11 doctoral programs:  the 16,000 student 
 
HO CHI MIN 00001002  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
university expects to confer only seven PhDs this year. 
 
Comment: 
-------- 
¶13. (SBU) Staffdel Atkins' visit highlighted the systemic 
misallocation of resources and bureaucratic mismanagement that 
hinders the development of the S&T sector to the point that it 
is difficult for even high-tech U.S. investors such as Intel to 
contribute to Vietnam's continuing modernization.  More 
encouraging is the existence of discrete centers of research and 
teaching excellence such as the SHTP Research labs and the 
Saigon Institute of Technology.  At these institutions policies 
that provide merit-based resources (from a mix of all available, 
including private, sources) and functional autonomy are yielding 
international quality research and training.  By pioneering such 
policies in Vietnam, HCMC has again adopted the role of national 
trend-setter.  End comment. 
 
¶14. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassy Hanoi. 
FAIRFAX