SUCCESSFUL RESEARCH COOPERATION BETWEEN VIETNAM AND DENMARK

The annual meeting was used to take stock of the preliminary experience, and Chairman of the Danish Consultative Research Committee for Development Research, Professor Henrik Secher Marcussen summarised this as follows:

“We are at the turn of a new trend in international research cooperation where research is increasingly driven by national policies, strategies and priorities in partner countries. The programme in Vietnam is pioneering the trends that we want to promote, and I am pleased to see that it has evolved positively and has strong ownership from researchers and authorities in Vietnam. Three years are too short to produce solid and useful results and it is important to continue the programme for another three years to consolidate some of the on-going projects and initiate a number of new projects”.

Vice-minister Nguyễn Quân from Ministry of Science and Technology fully agreed with the summary and stressed the Vietnamese appreciation of research projects which are driven by national priorities. He suggested that particular attention should be given to research projects working in areas highly vulnerable to climate change such as the Mekong Delta. Head of Technical Advisory services, Mr. John Nielsen, established that the programme has demonstrated that the new model works: new Danish researchers are selected by Vietnamese partners, and there is reason to be confident that we will see a positive impact of what has been supported.

With an overall thematic focus on climate change, the research collaboration programme (2008-2011) is piloting a new approach by letting Vietnamese researchers define the themes of the joint projects and select the Danish researchers they want to work with. Four projects are running so far, while a new call for proposals is expected to result in another two projects being approved during 2010.