P. D. Hien

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract

This paper presents a comparative study of research performance of 11 East and Southeast Asian countries based upon the total number of peer-refereed international publications (PRIP) per one million people (research intensity), the mean citation, and the contribution of domestic authors in PRIP production. Large gaps are observed within the region in the three above dimensions reflecting the disparities among countries in the levels of socio-economic development. Vietnam is among countries of low research intensity in the region having 9.3 PRIPs per one million people in 2008. Other weaknesses includes the heavy reliance on foreign authors, the low numbers of PRIPs on applied and multidisci- plinary fields, and the modest contribution from Vietnamese universities in PRIP pro- duction. The paper suggests approaches that  should be  taken  for  enhancing  research capability and reshaping science and higher education system in Vietnam.

Keywords: ISI database Citation Country-based research University Research fields

Introduction

Following Japan, over the last decades South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and recently, China, have made major strides towards catching up with European and North American front-runners in the world arena and global economy. Science  and education, especially higher education, have been a driving force behind building the capacity of these globally competitive economies in East Asia.

In higher education, research universities play a crucial role in training  high-level specialists, scientists, and researchers, who make up the pool of highly skilled workers on which the country’s capability for technology adaptation and innovation is built-up (United Nations 2005). The ability to publish research findings in prestigious, peer-refereed jour- nals is a critical measure of the quality of  scientific output. That is why international publications are among key criteria used in ranking the world’s leading universities (SJTU 2008; THES 2008).

Vietnam has adopted free market policies only recently after many decades of war and reliance on a Soviet–style centrally planned economy. It is obvious that Vietnamese higher education lags behind neighboring countries like Thailand and Malaysia, and has a long way to go to reach the current levels of Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. In this context, a comparative analysis of the  research performance of East and Southeast Asian countries based on PRIP will help reveal trends that Vietnam may need to consider as it continues to reform its higher education system (Socialist Republic of Vietnam 2005).

Hereafter, PRIPs only refers to peer-reviewed articles indexed in the Thomson-Reuters ISI database (http://isiwebofknowledge.com). The ISI database covers all research disciplinary fields of natural, engineering, and social sciences  from more than 8,600 peer- refereed international journals. Based on ISI data base, an overall picture can be obtained about the research performance of eleven East and Southeast Asian countries with regard to the research intensity and its growth rate, mean citation, research fields profile, and the contribution of domestic versus foreign authors.

As a case study, a comparative analysis of the research performance of top Vietnamese and Thai universities will reveal that a vast gulf still separates Vietnamese universities from their peer institutions in the region.

Research intensity

In 2008 the annual research output of 11 East and Southeast Asian countries varies from 607 PRIPs for the Philippines to 94,766 PRIPs for China. Japan, the second most populous country in the region, occupied the second place producing 64,039 PRIPs. To make the research output comparable across countries, we will consider the  total PRIPs per one million people, which is referred to hereafter as a country’s research intensity.

Figure 1 shows that the research intensity of each country is growing at a roughly constant rate. Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia have been growing rather rapidly, at about 15–16% annually. However, the research intensity of Vietnam remains 6.5 and 9.5 times lower than Thailand and Malaysia, respectively. In the meantime, it is still three times as high as Indonesia’s research intensity and since 2004 has exceeded the Philippines, which maintains an annual growth rate of only 5.7%. China has  developed at the fastest rate: about 20% per year; it has surpassed Thailand and is about to catch up with Malaysia. In contrast, the most advanced economies in the region with high PRIP output have main- tained lower annual growth rates, i.e.  South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore: 9–11% per year, Hong Kong: 5% per year, and Japan: 1% per year.

In terms of research intensity, Singapore leads the region, about 30, 170 and 530 times higher than Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, respectively. Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are next after Singapore. Large gaps in research intensity are observed not only between the regional top and bottom performers, but also between different groups of countries (Fig. 1). Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam form the group of lowest research intensity and have a long way to go to reach the current levels of Thailand, China, and Malaysia, which in turn lag far  behind the most advanced group of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan.

To a great extent, the gaps in research intensity reflect the different levels of socio- economic development in the region. Within this group of countries,  research  intensity correlates strongly with per capita GDP (Fig. 2) and even more strongly with UN’s Human Development Index, HDI (UNDP 2006) reflecting the mutual impact of  socio-economic development and scientific research. Economic growth gives rise to increased investment in higher education and high quality scientific research, which in turn enhances the country’s capability in technology adaptation and innovation through knowledge creation, dissemi- nation, transfer and utilization (United Nations 2005; Bernardes and Albuquerque 2003).

The quality  of research

The research intensity defined above does not capture the quality of research output, which varies dramatically between ISI-indexed journals as well as within a journal. Indicators based on citations, or field-normalized citations, received by scientific  articles are often used for evaluating the research quality. Field normalization means that the citation rate is expressed in relation to the world average of each research field. As such, field normalized citations are expected to offer a more reasonable approximation for comparing the research quality of institutions and countries (see e.g. Karlsson and Wadskog 2007). In this study, however, due to the enormous workload associated  with the field normalization, and following SJTU (2008) and THES (2008) in ranking world universities, we are content to rely on the average or total citation for comparing the research quality of institutions and countries dealing with multidisciplinary research.

The average citation can be obtained from the total citation that is readily available from the ISI database for countries with an annual research output of less than 10,000 PRIPs. For countries producing more than this threshold (Taiwan, South Korea,  Japan, and China) citation data are not available. The mean citation, therefore,  was computed by random sampling across the database, in which the number of samples was high enough to ensure the relative standard error of less than 5%. The results are shown in Fig. 3.

The average citation of East Asian countries in Fig. 3 do not reflect the levels of science and technology advancement of countries in the region, as in Figs. 1 and 2. PRIPs from the Philippines and Vietnam are more frequently cited than those  from  China, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea. Similarly, Hong Kong and Singapore lead the region in citation leaving far behind Taiwan and South Korea.  As shown in ‘‘International collaboration research versus country-based research’’ section, these features can be explained through an analysis of the origins of authors contributing to the PRIPs.

International collaboration research  versus country-based research

Domestic and foreign authorships

The research intensity and the citation statistics discussed above do not take into account the fact that many of the authors of PRIPs attributed to research organizations in the region are in fact foreigners. The statistics in Fig. 4 derived from the built-in tool ‘‘Analyse’’ in the ISI database show that domestic authors account for 30–40% of PRIPs from Indonesia and Philippines, 60% from Thailand and about 80% from Japan, Taiwan and China.

PRIPs of countries having weak science capability such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam rely  heavily on foreign authors. Many of the PRIPs  attributed to these countries are essentially produced in North America and Western Europe through bilateral scientific cooperation or fellowship programs that bring  young scientists to  academic institutions in advanced countries to pursue doctoral and post-doctoral study. Through such kind of collaborative research less advanced countries are able to gain experience and skills needed for building their domestic research capacity and infrastructure.

The above findings imply that in order to arrive at the most accurate measure of  the research capacity of a country we should rely on domestic research output rather than the total PRIPs, especially if the PRIPs are dominated by foreign authors. Domestically pro- duced PRIPs should also be used for assessing the effectiveness of a country’s science and technology policies because these result from the domestic investment and serve the need of the country’s socio-economic development.

Country-based research

In general, it is very difficult to pinpoint exactly whether an PRIP is primarily the result of a country’s indigenous scientific capacity or is essentially produced abroad. In this study the address of corresponding authors available from the ISI database is used to distinguish country-based and internationally collaborative PRIPs. We regard an PRIP as country-based if it has a country-based corresponding author.

This approach is justified by the two reasons. First, it is obvious that an PRIP is country- based if the corresponding author is co-authored with his/her domestic cohorts. In reality corresponding authors are co-authored with both domestic and foreign colleagues, but the former sub-category usually dominates accounting e.g.  for 60 and 72% of PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors for Vietnam and  the  Philippines, respectively, and gen- erally higher for more advanced countries.

Second, a sharp difference in the frequency of citation of the two PRIP categories is observed, as discussed  in  ‘‘Citations of country-based and international-collaboration PRIPs’’ section and shown in Table 1 for Vietnam and Thailand.

According to ISI statistics, the share of country-based corresponding authors in PRIPs varies widely among countries in the region, i.e. from 30% of the total PRIP output for Indonesia and Vietnam to about 90% for Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (Fig. 5).

The strength of various research fields of a country can also be assessed  considering only PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors. As an example, Table 3 shows the case of Vietnam. In many fields, especially those of significant importance for socioeconomic development, such as medicine and agriculture, most PRIPs are primarily attributed to foreign authors. Conversely, mathematics and theoretical physics, which require  little investment in research infrastructure, are the two strongest research fields in Vietnam.

Citations of country-based and international-collaboration PRIPs

Country-based PRIPs are  less frequently  cited  than  those with foreign  corresponding authors. This trend was found even for developed countries like Australia (Butler 2003), and is more obvious for less advanced countries using much weaker domestic resources, especially in research fields that require sophisticated laboratory facilities. Indeed, there is a twofold difference in citation frequencies between country-based versus  collaborative PRIPs for both Thailand and Vietnam (Table 1). This trend also  helps  explain the fact found in Fig. 3 that the average citations for the Philippines and Vietnam are higher than those for China and Taiwan, the PRIPs of which are  dominated by domestic authors (Fig. 4). Similarly, PRIPs of Hong Kong and  Singapore are more frequently cited than those of Japan.

The strength of various research fields of a country can also be assessed  considering only IPs with domestic corresponding authors. As an example, Table 3 shows the case of Vietnam. In many fields, especially those of significant  importance for socioeconomic development, such as medicine and agriculture, most IPs are primarily attributed to foreign authors. Conversely, mathematics and theoretical physics, which require little investment in research infrastructure, are the two strongest research fields in Vietnam.

Comparison of R&D performance of leading Vietnamese and Thai universities

To see how Vietnam’s leading universities compare to their peers in the region in terms of research performance, we can look to two leading Thai universities, Chulalongkorn and Mahidol. Chulalongkorn University was among the top 200 world-class  universities  in 2005, 2007, and 2008 according to the ranking by The Times Higher Education Supple- ments, THES (2008).

R&D activities in Thailand are concentrated in universities, which account for 95% of the country’s total PRIP output compared with only 55% in Vietnam.  Besides Chul- alongkorn and Mahidol universities, Thailand has other prestigious  universities such as Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, Kasetsart, Prince Songkla, Thammasat, and the Asian Institute of Technology, each of which produces hundreds of PRIPs annually.

In Tables 1 and 2 the aggregate output of four leading Vietnamese universities (Hanoi National University, Hanoi University of Technology, Hanoi University of Education, and Ho Chi Minh City National University) is compared with those of  Chulalongkorn and Mahidol universities in Thailand. The PRIPs produced by leading Vietnamese universities have increased rapidly in recent years and have doubled between 2004 and 2008. Despite this fast growth, Vietnam’s leading universities still generate 15–30 times fewer PRIPs than either Chulalongkorn or Mahidol universities. Each of these universities published more than the total number of PRIPs produced by all Vietnamese research institutions. PRIPs from Thai universities were also cited more often than those from Vietnam (Table 1).

There is a remarkable detail in column 3 of Table 1: the average number of citations of PRIPs produced by five leading Vietnamese research institutions (4.3–5.5) is lower than the national average. To explain this discrepancy, it is noted that the PRIPs associated with the  remaining  institutions were  dominated  by  authors  from  developed  countries. For example, among 82 PRIPs in the field of medical sciences in 2004, only 7 have Vietnamese corresponding authors. Vietnamese  corresponding authors account only for 29% of the national total PRIP in 2004 and 37% in 2008. The average citation of PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors is also much lower than that of foreign corresponding authors.

By contrast, at Chulalongkorn and Mahidol universities, Thai corresponding  authors account for 70% of the total PRIPs produced in 2004 (Table 1), and for nearly 80% in 2008 (Tables 2, 3). Their average citations are also higher.

The profile of research fields

From the above analysis it is clear that in order to gain insight into the profile of research fields in Vietnam, we must to look at PRIPs with Vietnamese corresponding authors. Thus, the next analysis examines 234 PRIPs of this kind produced by all Vietnamese research institutions in 2007 and classified according to research fields (Table 4). The results are compared with Chulalongkorn University’s 602 PRIPs. In  Table 4 are listed only major research fields. Other research fields, including particularly those on social sciences, have less than 6 articles for Chulalongkorn University and 3 articles for Vietnam.

At Chulalongkorn University, the main fields of scientific research are applied-oriented, such as medicine, chemistry, bio-sciences, engineering, materials  sciences, agriculture, etc.. By contrast, Vietnam’s PRIPs are dominated by  mathematics and physics (half of which are in the field of theoretical physics), while the PRIP output in these two fields is very modest at Chulalongkorn and other Thai universities. The dominance of mathematics and theoretical physics within  Vietnam’s national PRIP total is explained partly by the legacy of Soviet influence on Vietnamese science and higher education and, perhaps, by the inclination of  Vietnamese towards abstract thinking. But without question the most important factor explaining the weakness of applied sciences and engineering in Vietnam is the inadequacy of government policy and a lack of investment in research and training capacity.

Many leading scientific research institutions in Vietnam are absent from international scientific journals. Within Hanoi National University, which enrolls  more than 30,000 students, PRIPs from domestic corresponding authors only originate from the School of Engineering and the Mathematics and Physics Departments. Similarly, among 19 articles from Ho Chi Minh City National University in 2004, 9 were in physics.

Research in applied fields such as food processing, agriculture, and natural resource exploitation—sectors that currently account for a significant share of Vietnam’s exports— is weak if measured in terms of domestically generated PRIPs. The level of country-based medical research is also inadequate for a country regularly plagued by tropical infectious diseases. In fact, PRIP output in the medical field is dominated by foreign corresponding authors, suggesting that efforts to train Vietnamese medical scientists in advanced coun- tries have not yet led to an increased capacity to conduct advanced research at home. The shortage of skilled researchers is observed also in oceanic and atmospheric studies, which are very important for a country which suffers regularly from weather-related calamities and has a long coastline with a large, and potentially productive, exclusive economic zone. From the perspective that Vietnam is likely to be among the countries most affected by climate change and sea-level rise in the decades to come, the lack of research capacity in this area is alarming indeed.

Discussion and conclusion

In this study, the scientific research capability of East Asian countries is assessed using a three-dimensional basis, namely the research intensity defined as total PRIP production per one million people, the quality of research according to average citations, and the extent of self-reliance in research as measured by PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors.

The study reveals that the research intensity is closely related to per capita GDP and Human Development Index (HDI), and therefore, it can be used as a proxy for socio-economic development of a country. Singapore leads the East Asian region with 1,549 PRIPs per one million people in 2008, about 30, 170 and 530 times higher than Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, respectively. With regard to the PRIP growth  rate, China has developed the fastest with above 20% per year, followed by  Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam with 15–16% per year, while the most advanced economies in the region with great amounts of PRIPs have maintained lower growth rates, e.g. Hong Kong: 7% per year and Japan: 1% per year.

Large gaps are also observed within the region regarding the extent of self-reliance in scientific research. The proportion of PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors varies from about 30% for Indonesia to nearly 90% for Japan and Taiwan. Articles with foreign corresponding authors are cited more frequently than those with domestic corresponding authors. As a country’s scientific capability advances, both the proportion and citation of PRIPs with domestic corresponding authors are expected to increase.

So far Vietnam’s total PRIP output has been still smaller than that of a single university in  Thailand,  such  as  Chulalongkorn  or  Mahidol.  Moreover,  domestic  corresponding authors account for nearly 80% of PRIPs from Thailand compared with only 37% from Vietnam. Thailand’s scientific research is closely linked with university training: 95% of Thailand’s PRIPs are produced at universities compared with only 55% in Vietnam. Also in contrast with Thailand, a majority of PRIPs  from Vietnam are in mathematics and theoretical  physics. While  many  engineering  and  applied  research projects  are  being undertaken in Vietnam (Ca and Hung 2008), the outcomes are not appearing in interna- tional journals in high numbers. This raises serious questions about the quality and rele- vance of these activities.

Since embarking on the process of market-oriented reforms more than two decades ago, Vietnam’s per capita income is poised to surpass the 1,000 USD threshold, enabling the country to claim ‘‘lower middle income’’ status. The fact remains,  however, that the Vietnamese economy is overwhelmingly concentrated in low value added sectors such as agriculture,  natural  resource  exploitation,  and  light  manufacturing  (Dapice  2008).  If Vietnam is to move up the value-added ladder and integrate into global supply chains it will need a much larger corps of skilled  workers, especially in science and technology related fields, than its university system is currently capable of producing. Fulfilling this demand will require a  radical change in Vietnam’s R&D organizations and higher edu- cation system.

A large number of Vietnam’s universities need to shift from teaching-based to research- oriented. While government policy officially embraces this shift, change  has been slow, and incentive structures within the higher education system continue to discourage faculty from pursuing serious research.

The above analysis suggests approaches for reshaping science and higher  education system in Vietnam. Publishing research findings in international refereed journals should be recognized as a key criterion for ensuring the quality of R&D output. This requirement is a big challenge for Vietnam’s scientists, which publish annually thousands of research papers but about 95% are in Vietnamese and in domestic journals (Ministry of Science and Technology 2007). The country must concentrate its resources and political will on efforts to  build  multidisciplinary  research universities that  embody internationally-recognized standards in teaching, research, and governance. Only by strengthening research capabil- ities of Vietnamese academic institutions can the current dearth of skilled professionals in fields such as medicine, agricultural science, engineering, and many other applied scientific and social science fields be addressed. If this can be done, centers of excellence in research and technology innovation will spring up creating a new face of Vietnam’s science and higher education.

Acknowledgments  The author thanks Ben Wilkinson, Susan Phan, Peter K. Pham, and Keith Roberts for their valuable comments. This work was done partly during my participation in the ADB-supported Project on Establishing New Model Universities in Vietnam.

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