HUST’s transformation is in line with the trend of the multi-disciplinary university models in the world because of its superiority in teaching, research, and high adaptability to meet socio-economic needs, education experts shared the same opinion about the innovations of HUST in 2021.
Following the “One HUST” philosophy, HUST begins the transformation process by reorganizing and merging its faculties and departments. HUST has prepared for the transformation for the past 5 years and is among the first universities in Vietnam to begin this transforming process towards autonomy.
Last year, Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) officially merged some of the faculties and departments into 3 smaller schools/colleges. By the end of this year, HUST plans to become a university of at least 6 colleges. With this transformation, each school will have greater autonomy in admission, academics, and research,… thus will have more opportunities for growth and innovation.
Michael Drabble – Senior Education Expert, World Bank:
Build a successful model for universities in Vietnam
“HUST’s transformation towards autonomy will create a lean and stronger organizational structure while strengthening unity as well as a sense of common purpose and identity. This transformation aims also to promote greater efficiency in terms of leadership, management, training, and research. The objective is really to improve the performance of HUST and to serve as a model. So, this transformation is tremendously important for HUST and for the development of higher education institutions in Vietnam.
This is an important breakthrough towards more autonomy and accountability for universities. This is leading the way to support major reforms in areas of institutional governance arrangements. Of course with autonomy, universities will take more responsibilities for reforming, innovating, adapting to a rapidly changing environment, and facing some important challenges in the society and the economy.
One important dimension of this reform is also to invest heavily for improved quality of teaching, training, and research. Universities and faculties and colleges will need to fully utilize this new capacity to realize the full promise of autonomy.
The changes adopted by HUST in its organization, autonomy, and academic arrangements will steer the university to realize its full potential. HUST can attract the best talents and provide the best learning and research environment for its professors, lecturers, researchers, and students.
With the reform, HUST has been able to develop its own vision and to prepare its strategic actions plan that creates the conditions for HUST to be a center of learning and teaching and contribute to strengthening HUST’s position as a leading university in Asia and the ASEAN region.
SAHEP accompanies HUST’s transformation and development. One visible contribution of SAHEP is the investment in new and modern facilities, classrooms, lecture halls, and laboratories. The less visible investments are those that support enhancing the quality and revision of training programs, the push for getting more programs to receive international accreditation, the organization of activities to promote research, the overall support for internal quality assurance. Of course, one objective for SAHEP is to ensure that HUST graduates can fulfill their aspirations and be well-prepared to enter the labor market.”
Hoàng Vân Anh, Director Education and Society at British Council Vietnam:
Breakthroughs in Vietnamese education
“HUST’s autonomy has opened more international cooperation opportunities. The university is willing to learn management experiences from long-standing models in the world such as those in the United Kingdom.
HUST constantly focuses on system development such as building capacity assessment indicators, improving quality assurance systems for teaching and research, and forging close linkages with businesses and society.
As a leading university in Vietnam in the field of science and technology, this model transformation will create opportunities for teaching, scientific research application, and interdisciplinary collaborations in important fields of science and technology of Industry 4.0.
One of the first pilot universities experimenting with autonomy in the early days, HUST has made breakthroughs in empowerment, new governance model build, talent investment, and quality improvement.
The British Council has the opportunity to work closely with HUST through leadership training programs, innovation activities, and the Newton Foundation. HUST is also the Co-Chair of the Vietnam Higher Education Cooperation Network, supporting and contributing to the network’s development orientation.
The year 2022 opens new cooperation activities between HUST and the UK in the field of digital transformation; quality assurance in teaching, research; innovation; and knowledge transfer. I wish HUST always maintain its pioneering position as a university in engineering and technology, contributing to Vietnam’s economic and social development while working closely with partners around the world to jointly solve global challenges, and closely engaging with the community to fulfill the university’s social mission.
Stefan Hase-Bergen – Head of Regional DAAD Office Hanoi, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD):
Opportunity to further develop strengths in education and research
The transformation of HUST into a “parent university” offers a great opportunity for HUST to further develop its strengths in education and research. It can strengthen its profile as a research-oriented university with a university strategy that applies to all colleges and gives the university a clear direction for future development.
In times when interdisciplinary research and also education is becoming more and more important, such a transformation helps to support interdisciplinary approaches by granting more autonomy to the colleges and at the same time using the advantages of being under one strategic roof.
HUST is once again one of the pioneering universities to enter new territory in higher education in Vietnam, leading the path to success.
DAAD is grateful for the successful cooperation with HUST and looks forward to continuing this close partnership in the future.
