15 years in review

Scientific research is one of the traditional activities and strengths of the staff and students of Hanoi National University. Famous scientific works and in-depth scientific thinking style have become the characteristics of teachers and students. Therefore, the title of “National University student” has become the pride of generations of students.Along with the policy of promoting higher education in Vietnam, the Vietnamese Government has decided to establish two National Universities at two ends of the country as the locomotives of higher education in Vietnam. Hanoi University of Science is the core of one of the two universities - Hanoi National University. With favorable mechanisms and conditions, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - as a core member of Hanoi National University has achieved important achievements in research and training, promoting the tradition of Hanoi University of Science. One of those achievements is the scientific research work of students. Looking back over the past 15 years, we can affirm that the scientific research work of students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has made important developments in both quantity and quality. In addition to the general rise of national student scientific research from "Student Science Research Week" arrive "Student scientific research movement", scientific research of students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has gone beyondmovementand gradually become an indispensable activity in the learning process of students.

1. First Impressions (1996)

In 1996, 10/12 faculties organized student scientific conferences.⁽¹⁾with 198 reports. Besides students of traditional faculties such as History, Literature, Philosophy; students of newly established faculties such as Tourism, International Studies, Oriental Studies also actively participated in scientific research. Many students who actively participated in scientific research at that time have now become lecturers and managers of the School such as:

• Bui Viet Ha, student of class 37, Faculty of Literature
• Pham Van Dung, student of class 39, Faculty of Literature
• Pham Thuy Hong, student of class 39, Faculty of Literature
• Nguyen Van Suu, student of class 38, Faculty of History
• Ly Tuong Van, student of class 38, Faculty of History
• Le Thi Quynh Nga, student of class 38, Faculty of History
• Lai Quoc Khanh, student of class 39, Faculty of Philosophy
• etc.⁽²⁾

With the above faces, we can affirm that scientific research right from school has been, is and will be an important premise in the university training process, especially in basic science fields.

2. General assessment of student scientific research activities 1996 - 2010

One of the important advantages of the School's student scientific research activities is that students study in the environment of a traditional university with a long history of scientific research. In each lecture, students are instilled with a passionate spirit in exploring and discovering new things in science by the teachers. This learning environment has contributed significantly to promoting a large number of students of the School to actively and effectively respond to the policies of the Ministry of Education and Training as well as of Hanoi National University and the School on students' scientific research activities. The number of students participating in scientific research is increasing.(Chart 1)In some years, a student participated in up to 2 scientific reports.

It is worth mentioning that, during the process of participating in scientific research, many students voluntarily gathered in groups to carry out research together.This shows that students' scientific research not only helps improve the quality of training at the school but also plays an important role in forming and practicing cooperation and teamwork skills - soft skills that are still lacking in current training programs in Vietnam.The team of teachers of the School actively and effectively participate in the process of guiding and helping students in scientific research. In particular, there are senior professors and teachers who are very busy with scientific research activities and postgraduate training of the School but are still enthusiastic and spend time guiding students in scientific research such as Prof. Vu Duong Ninh (Faculty of International Studies), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen An Lich (Faculty of Sociology), Assoc. Prof. Dr. Pham Xanh (Faculty of History), etc. The team of young staff also plays an important role in contributing to the scientific research achievements of the School's students such as MSc. Pham Anh Sao (Faculty of Literature), MSc. Nguyen Tuan Cuong (Faculty of Literature), MSc. Nguyen Thu Thuy (Faculty of Tourism Studies), MSc. Dinh Viet Hai (Training Department), MSc. Do Huong Thao (Faculty of History), etc. The management levels of faculties, departments as well as the teaching staff always identify supporting and organizing scientific research for students as a regular task. Therefore, the activity of supporting and guiding students in scientific research has been identified by the School as one of the types of scientific research activities of lecturers and has specific labor hour norms for lecturers participating in this activity. Over the past 15 years, the Board of Directors as well as relevant departments have paid due attention in directing and investing funds to encourage and motivate students to actively participate in scientific research activities. In addition to the regular scientific activity budget invested from the state budget, every year, the School often allocates hundreds of millions of VND from the additional revenue to support students' scientific research (See Chart 2). Faculty and department managers as well as teaching staff always identify supporting and organizing scientific research for students as a regular task. Therefore, the activity of supporting and guiding students in scientific research has been identified by the School as one of the types of scientific research activities of lecturers and has specific labor hour norms for lecturers participating in this activity.

Student scientific research is one of the important and in-depth activities of the Youth Union and Association at all levels. Many Youth Union and Association branches have actively coordinated with class executive committees to organize student scientific conferences in their classes. The Youth Union of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has initiated awards for scientific research projects of students with initiatives contributing to the building and development of the Youth Union and Association movement.Going beyond the movement and becoming a regular activity in teaching and learning of the School is one of the important development steps of scientific research activities of students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities.. The lecturers introducing new directions of the subject, assigning homework; students asking, requesting lecturers to suggest new approaches and providing new materials have become regular contents of teaching and learning hours in the classroom. This is especially evident when the University switched to the credit-based training method. The class time of teachers and students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities is not simply teaching and learning activities but has many styles of a scientific seminar. In order to enhance the spirit of scientific research of students, with the characteristics of a university of basic sciences, in the training program of the University, students are often required to write subject essays and theses. It is the awareness of enhancing scientific research of students during the training process that has made many students early aware of finding and shaping a research direction of their own, from determining the subject essay topics, theses to scientific research topics and graduation thesis topics. Among them, many students have pursued their research direction to postgraduate levels. Many students have been invited to participate in scientific topics of lecturers in the school, in particular, many students have been invited by lecturers in the school to participate in writing independent topics of major topics. Because it has gone beyond the movement and become a regular, indispensable activity of the training process, besides the large participation in quantity, scientific research activities of students of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities have achieved encouraging results in quality.On average, every year, the school's students receive 6-8 ministerial-level awards. In 10 years (2000-2009), the school's students won 6 first prizes at the ministerial level; the school was awarded the title of "Excellent Unit in the Student Scientific Research Movement" 6 times and was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Ministry of Education and Training.According to statistics, students who are active in scientific research have very good academic results and are transferred to master's and doctoral degrees (See Table 1). According to experience, these students can completely achieve a doctorate degree within 4-8 years from the date of university graduation. Practice over the past ten years has shown that many students of K38, 39 (graduated from university in 1997, 1998) who were active in scientific research now have doctorate degrees and hold managerial positions at the department and school levels.

Year	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Transfer students	Not specified	Not specified	Not specified	Not specified	Not specified	17 +1 (MSc + PhD)	11 + 0 (MSc + PhD)	37 + 2 (MSc + PhD)	42 + 0 (MSc + PhD)	94 + 10 (MSc + PhD)	0 + 0 (MSc + PhD)	1 + 0 (MSc + PhD)	3 + 1 (MSc + PhD)	0 + 0 (MSc + PhD)	Not considered

Table 1. Number of scientific research students transferred to postgraduate training (1996 - 2010) A very important qualitative result of students' scientific research activities is to develop the ability to detect scientific and practical problems that need to be researched, the ability to approach and develop problems, the ability to apply research methods, and the ability to write and present research results.Although it is a qualitative result, we believe that this is the expected result of student scientific research in universities. This result allows us to detect early talents in the field of science and technology to have policies for training, fostering and promoting. This result allows us to shorten the gap between the knowledge trained in school and the requirements of practical work. And, this result is also the result of a training philosophy that turns the training process into a self-training process, training is a process of training capacity so that learners become people with the ability to learn for life. From the practice of 15 years of organizing and implementing scientific research activities of students at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, we can draw some typical experiences - experiences that have created important achievements in the scientific research work of students.

3. Some typical experiences in organization and management

- Identifying scientific research of students as a regular activity of the training process, at the beginning of the school year (September), the University of Social Sciences and Humanities organizes a conference of leaders and assistants of faculties/departments in charge of scientific research work with representatives of the leaders of the Union, Association and relevant departments to discuss, exchange and make specific and detailed plans on funding, time, organization methods, etc. Thanks to that, individuals and relevant departments proactively and effectively implement scientific research work of students. - Faculties, departments and Union and Association organizations at all levels and especially the teaching staff actively initiate, support, assist and guide students in choosing, registering topics and instructors; students take the opportunity to ask for opinions from teachers right in class. The Youth Union and Association also organize discussion sessions and share experiences in writing and presenting a scientific report for students, especially first-year students who do not have much research experience. - Student scientific conferences are organized and selected by grade, department, faculty, and group, and on that basis, the School organizes a school-level student conference. The printing of the annual student scientific conference minutes with a 3-part structure (Part I. Works that won awards at the Ministry level, Part II. Summary of works that won awards at the school level, and Part III. List of student scientific reports by course and by faculty) are publications that are not only valuable as archival documents but also valuable in encouraging each student and class of students to actively participate in scientific research in the following years. - Regimes and policies on financial support, scientific research hours, and criteria for evaluating year-end labor titles for teaching staff; The financial support regime, bonus points, and postgraduate transfer standards for students participating in scientific research are documented, public, transparent, and strictly implemented. - The school assigns a specialized specialist (at the school level) along with a scientific assistant and a student affairs assistant at the faculty level to regularly monitor and urge work. - Investing funds in depth and effectively: In addition to the regular budget, the school allocates funds from additional revenue sources to support students in scientific research. However, what is more important is the investment method: Only students with scientific reports will receive financial support from the school, and in particular, after the school-level conference, potential projects will receive more financial support from the school through scientific research contracts so that students have the conditions to further complete their research projects.

4. Some solutions to improve the effectiveness of students' scientific research activities

- Streamline the training program so that students have time to study and research on their own. Lecture outlines must mention and clearly state new research directions of the subject and have mandatory exercises so that students can gradually approach these new directions. - Innovate the content and methods or teaching methods: increase the atmosphere of exchange and discussion during class hours to stimulate curiosity, passion and discovery in students. - Increase scientific research funding for universities in the direction of regular research funding to encourage and require teachers to do scientific research. On that basis, encourage and have mechanisms for students to participate in programs and research topics of lecturers. - Encourage and create conditions for students to publish scientific research results in scientific journals of universities, even specialized journals. - Innovate the activities of the Association and the Youth Union in the direction of going into depth: Considering scientific research activities of students as one of the main contents of the activities of the Union and the Association. This is especially suitable for credit-based training methods where the role of departments and faculties with students is less strict than in year-based training, especially in the first years when students are still studying general subjects organized by subject classes.

5. Some recommendations

- The Ministry needs to have a mechanism and policy to invest in training students who achieve high results at a level similar to or higher than the investment in postgraduate training abroad using the state budget. It is possible to consider scientific research of students as one of the measures to discover talents in the field of science and technology. And if this is true, then the next steps must certainly betrainingandimportant. - In addition to the award ceremony being conducted solemnly, the Ministry should organize direct exchanges and discussions and, moreover, should create a separate forum for scientific research students to exchange experiences. This forum is also a tool for us to monitor the learning path and career of potentials to have support when needed. - There are separate scoring and award selection criteria for basic sciences because this is a difficult but very necessary research direction. - There are separate scoring and award selection criteria for specific scientific fields such as social sciences and humanities because works in this field are difficult to achieve high scores, especially a score of ten, compared to natural sciences and exact sciences. In practice, in recent years, the fields of social sciences and humanities often have fewer awards, especially First Prizes compared to natural sciences and exact sciences. - The guidelines for judging and selecting awards should focus more on methods and ideas than on research results because students' research capacity, time and funding are very limited./.

Note

(1) At that time, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Economics were still under the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The two faculties that did not organize the Student Scientific Conference were the Faculty of National Defense Education and the Faculty of Vietnamese Language and Culture for Foreigners. These were two faculties that did not directly train full-time students. (2) See the Proceedings of the First Student Scientific Conference. University of Social Sciences and Humanities, May 1996.