How will the new Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Vietnam look like?

13 October, 2021

The Word Bank has just launched a new report “Vietnam – Science, Technology, and Innovation Report (STI)” to provide analytical support for Vietnam’s upcoming ten-year Science and Technology Innovation (STI) Strategy 2021-2030 and the Socio-economic Development Strategy (SEDS) 2021-2030.

The STI Report and an accompanying Policy Brief have been prepared in response to a request from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST). It was compiled within the ASA program (Vietnam Enhancing Innovation Analytical and Advisory Services) supported by the Australia – World Bank Group Strategic Partnership in Vietnam (ABP2).

The STI report highlights the importance of technology adoption and innovation for business resilience as well as for productive growth – especially needed as the COVID-19 triggered economic shock impacts Vietnam too. It conceptualizes innovation with a stronger role for enterprises adopting and diffusing existing technology beyond the “narrow lens of science, formal research and development (R&D) and inventions”. Here, especially digital and new technologies – associated with Industry 4.0. digitalization, automation, and artificial intelligence – are mentioned in order to reshape Vietnam’s low-cost labor-intensive manufacturing-led export strategy.

The Vietnam 2035 Report (2016) already laid out the policy direction to strengthen Vietnam’s national innovation system (NIS). It emphasizes a productivity-led and innovation-driven growth model with enterprises placed at the center of innovation policies as the primary users of knowledge. The idea is based on moving “towards the technological frontier” by adoption and diffusion of technology rather than “pushing out the frontier” through invention.

This new strategy requires broad reforms in different fields – laid out as four pillars in the report (Fig). Besides the STI Strategy and its implementation itself, Demand and Supply side as well as institutional arrangements need to be tackled to enhance innovation.

Source of figure: World Bank Hanoi, 2021 in “Vietnam: Science, Technology and Innovation Report 2020”

This also requires coordination between various actors, including several ministries and different agencies.

Source of figure: World Bank Hanoi, 2021 in “Vietnam: Science, Technology and Innovation Report 2020”

With this report, Vietnam has got a basis for final debate on the upcoming ten-year Science and Technology Innovation (STI) Strategy 2021-2030.

We are curiously expecting Vietnam´s new STI strategy. Will it include (all) the suggested reforms and how will these be implemented? This may not only change research activities in the country but also in international cooperation.

The report “Vietnam : Science, Technology, and Innovation Report 2020” is available as follows:
Full report in English (129 pages)
Policy Brief in English (45 pages)
Policy Brief in Vietnamese (45 pages)

This article was compiled by Dr. Ute Arnold.

References
Akhlaque,Asya; Frias,Jaime Andres Uribe; Cirera,Xavier. Vietnam – Science, Technology, and Innovation Report (English). Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/929681629871018154/Vietnam-Science-Technology-and-Innovation-Report

World Bank; Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam. 2016. Vietnam 2035 : Toward Prosperity, Creativity, Equity, and Democracy. Washington, DC: World Bank. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23724 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.” or https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/infographic/2016/02/23/vietnam-2035-toward-prosperity-creativity-equity-and-democracy

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How will the new Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Vietnam look like?

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