Vietnam: the ONLY Asian developing country that drops in R&D

[GS Zhou]

According to the NatureIndex records in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Vietnam is surprisingly experiencing consecutive drops on high-quality research paper output. Vietnam's output drops from 8.23 in 2013, to 8.03 in 2014 and 6.96 in 2015. That's indeed a surprising result! Because Vietnam is the ONLY Asian developing country that is experiencing a two-year consecutive drop! This looks really weird, because:

1. Vietnam people are definitely very smart people, and they are proud of their education system
2. Vietnam is making remarkable economic growth in recent years, so there should be more investment to R&D
3. The base record of Vietnam is extremely small (0.1% of China), so it should not be very difficult to make some growth

Are there any particular reasons to the consecutive drops of Vietnam? Or is it maybe NatureINDEX staff are very stupid, so they makes wrong calculations on Vietnam's result?

Any ideas are welcome.

link to the NatureIndex result:
http://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2016/country/all/regions-Asia Pacific
http://www.natureindex.com/annual-tables/2015/country/all/regions-Asia Pacific

-----------------------------------------------Background information------------------------------------------------------------
What is NatureIndex?
The Nature Index is a database of author affiliation information collated from research articles published in an independently selected group of 68 high-quality science journals. The database is compiled by Nature Research. The Nature Index provides a close to real-time proxy for high-quality research output at the institutional, national and regional level.

What are the Nature Index journals?

What is WFC?
Weighted fractional count (WFC) accounts for the relative contribution of each author to an article, and adjusts for the abundance of astronomy and astrophysics papers.

 

[AndrewJin]

They probably have spent too much on those failed reclamation projects that are blown away by wind.

 

[BoQ77]

You guys always swap the terms.
R&D and paper work output?

Why you dont tell what you read as "... paper output decline"

 

[TaiShang]

They probably have spent too much on those failed reclamation projects that are blown away by wind.

I agree. National power is spent on ideas/projects that are inconclusive and meager.

Hopefully, Vietnam will not fall into the (insert a country name here) state of mind of inconclusive and inefficient boasting about future this, future that and unhealthy fixation on China.

Small countries cannot grow with big steps. They need to take steps in proportional to their size. There is no short-cut to greatness.

 

[AViet]

Firstly, what is NatureIndex records and is it reliable?

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

 

[GS Zhou]

Firstly, what is NatureIndex records and is it reliable?

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

Nature Index counts the research papers published by the 68 top science journals. Look at the journal names I sent, they are all best journals from their respective areas. So only the best findings could be published by these journals.

I believe language and money constrains are headache to almost all Asian countries, incl. China. To me, growth rate is even more important than absolute number. Otherwise the gap with the best country could only become wider and wider.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal that worth VCP's attention.

 

[艹艹艹]

Firstly, what is NatureIndex records and is it reliable?

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

Don't engage in research and development.
Hurry to buy ammunition

 

[TaiShang]

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

It is unfair, but, to be recognized globally, it has become almost universal that one has to publish in international (English) journals.

This is so for my institution, as well. If I want to get a good teaching position after my post-doctorate study, I need to publish in international journals.

Publishing in national journal in your own language counts, but, if you have a competitor for the same positon with, say, two SSCI publications, then, she/he will definitely have an edge over you.

This is so for Greater China region and many other areas. It must be so in Vietnam, as well.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

That absolutely makes sense.

 

[Viet]

Nature Index counts the research papers published by the 68 top science journals. Look at the journal names I sent, they are all best journals from their respective areas. So only the best findings could be published by these journals.

I believe language and money constrains are headache to almost all Asian countries, incl. China. To me, growth rate is even more important than absolute number. Otherwise the gap with the best country could only become wider and wider.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal that worth VCP's attention.

I believe you are too obsessed by Vietnam, that is not healthy. maybe it is true our R&D sucks, who knows, but the foreigners seem to value our engineers. a quick google "R&D Vietnam", latest announcements:

Apple (US)
Nidec Corp (Japan)
Renesas Electronics Corp (Japan)
Samsung (S Korea)
Samil CTS (S Korea)
Robert Bosch (Germany)

 

[AndrewJin]

Firstly, what is NatureIndex records and is it reliable?

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

English is a headache to a lot of countries.
In China, we have a huge number of scientific journals printed in Chinese, which is not recognised by this NatureIndex.

 

[GS Zhou]

I believe you are too obsessed by Vietnam, that is not healthy. maybe it is true our R&D sucks, who knows, but the foreigners seem to value our engineers. a quick google "R&D Vietnam", latest announcements:

Apple (US)
Nidec Corp (Japan)
Renesas Electronics Corp (Japan)
Samsung (S Korea)
Samil CTS (S Korea)
Robert Bosch (Germany)

thanks for sharing the information.

I have full respect to the Vietnam engineers. I stated very clearly in my post: Vietnam people are smart people, and you have a good education system.

Now the question seems that Vietnam has good engineers, but the engineers could not be properly leveraged by your own universities, research institutions or industrial companies. I'm not sure what is the root reason, maybe
- low incentive to research staff, so hard to retain the best talents
- insufficient scientific equipment offered by your government (e.g. you can not expect your guys to be the best aerodynamic experts, if they even don't have modern wind tunnels)
- bad organization system, so the talents could not achieve high research efficiency.

I think you must know much better than me about the VN research system. Maybe you can share us more information.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal to Vietnam. Hope VCP could take some actions to change it.

All the best.

 

[vtnsx]

thanks for sharing the information.

I have full respect to the Vietnam engineers. I stated very clearly in my post: Vietnam people are smart people, and you have a good education system.

Now the question seems that Vietnam has good engineers, but the engineers could not be properly leveraged by your own universities, research institutions or industrial companies. I'm not sure what is the root reason, maybe
- low incentive to research staff, so hard to retain the best talents
- insufficient scientific equipment offered by your government (e.g. you can not expect your guys to be the best aerodynamic experts, if they even don't have modern wind tunnels)
- bad organization system, so the talents could not achieve high research efficiency.

I think you must know much better than me about the VN research system. Maybe you can share us more information.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal to Vietnam. Hope VCP could take some actions to change it.

All the best.

Corruption <--- Is the only reason for the drop. Top politicians are worried that their jobs could get replaced by someone way more capable then they are so they scorn the smart/brilliant people and make them feel they are worthless. This is the same with the Universities of Vietnam. Vietnam VCP still runs by ignorant thugs. These thugs only worry about their powers and money.

There's Dreamplex in Ho Chi Minh which stands out the most. But I wouldn't say that is a place for R&D.

 

[AndrewJin]

thanks for sharing the information.

I have full respect to the Vietnam engineers. I stated very clearly in my post: Vietnam people are smart people, and you have a good education system.

Now the question seems that Vietnam has good engineers, but the engineers could not be properly leveraged by your own universities, research institutions or industrial companies. I'm not sure what is the root reason, maybe
- low incentive to research staff, so hard to retain the best talents
- insufficient scientific equipment offered by your government (e.g. you can not expect your guys to be the best aerodynamic experts, if they even don't have modern wind tunnels)
- bad organization system, so the talents could not achieve high research efficiency.

I think you must know much better than me about the VN research system. Maybe you can share us more information.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal to Vietnam. Hope VCP could take some actions to change it.

All the best.

But Vietnam has the best universities in SEA according to our boat refugee friends abroad.

 

[Jlaw]

Firstly, what is NatureIndex records and is it reliable?

Secondly, Vietnamese may be doing a lot of R&D not reported internationally, partly thanks to our weakness in English.

Thirdly, what is the point to spend money and other precious resources like human talents to do R&D when neighboring countries have already mastered them. Buying from abroad is a much more economic way. After Vietnam reaches a certain level of GDP per capita, we can invest money and other resources into R&D.

natureindex is reliable.

If you blame on English, you can say that all the non English speaking countries actually understated their publications not just Vietnam

No amount of money can buy you the latest tech. Especially if the tech has a military application. Certainly China would not sell Vietnam tech like that.

 

[Viet]

thanks for sharing the information.

I have full respect to the Vietnam engineers. I stated very clearly in my post: Vietnam people are smart people, and you have a good education system.

Now the question seems that Vietnam has good engineers, but the engineers could not be properly leveraged by your own universities, research institutions or industrial companies. I'm not sure what is the root reason, maybe
- low incentive to research staff, so hard to retain the best talents
- insufficient scientific equipment offered by your government (e.g. you can not expect your guys to be the best aerodynamic experts, if they even don't have modern wind tunnels)
- bad organization system, so the talents could not achieve high research efficiency.

I think you must know much better than me about the VN research system. Maybe you can share us more information.

A two-year consecutive drop is definitely a bad signal to Vietnam. Hope VCP could take some actions to change it.

All the best.

I would tell you If I knew the answer.