Scientist of the integration period

From a homeland rich in historical traditions to Soviet Russia

Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh was born and raised in Ninh Giang district, Hai Duong province, a rural area in the Northern Delta. His hometown is a land with many historical imprints with the famous Luoc River, connecting the Red River with the Thai Binh River, which has appeared in Nguyen Du's poetry: "The Luoc River flows eastward, never returning.In particular, this land is also the cradle of many famous heroes, the most famous of which is the Governor Khuc Thua Du, who laid the foundation for the independence of the Vietnamese people (905-907) after nearly 1000 years of Chinese domination. Ninh Giang is not only rich in historical traditions but also famous for its sweet sticky rice cake specialty with the flavor of the homeland, which anyone would want to enjoy at least once. Proud of its historical and cultural traditions, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh also knows how to quickly innovate and integrate with the region and the world, on that basis, making his lectures and scientific research topics on the one hand imbued with historical colors, but on the other hand also modern and new.

Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Quang Minh

Born in 1962, he grew up when the country was divided by war, so studying was very difficult. Because of his love of learning and partly because there was no one to look after him at home, from the age of 5, the boy Pham Quang Minh "followed" his older brother to class and became an unofficial member of the class without realizing it. Until now, he still cannot forget the first grade class that had to be evacuated to the village temple and the bomb shelter dug right under the table so that students could immediately crawl in at any time, when American planes arrived. Classes were always interrupted and the atmosphere was always tense because one ear had to concentrate on listening to the lecture, while the other ear had to listen to the plane alarm. The items that had to be brought along, in addition to school supplies, were a "straw hat" on the head and a circle of woven straw to wear on the back, which the people in Ninh Giang at that time called "straw dwarf", to avoid shrapnel from American planes.

Despite living in difficult circumstances, student Pham Quang Minh was always diligent, overcame difficulties, and always achieved high results in his studies. Therefore, in 1978, when he was only 16 years old, Pham Quang Minh became the youngest student of K23, Faculty of History, Hanoi National University. After 1 year of university, thanks to his excellent academic achievements and training, he was sent by the University to study world history in the Soviet Union. He officially set foot in the land of birch trees in the fall of 1980 and studied a preparatory year at Moscow State University. A year later, he was able to study at Kuban State University in Krasnodar city, Southern Russia, near the famous Black Sea. Until now, he still believes that the 6 years of studying in the Soviet country (1980 - 1986) was the best time for him to realize his dream of studying. The beautiful country of Russia with its friendly, gentle, kind people, along with his pride in his homeland and country, helped him overcome difficulties and challenges, achieve excellent academic results, and accumulate valuable experiences for his future career. In 1986, he graduated from university with honors and returned home with a good degree and was assigned to be a lecturer at the Faculty of History, Hanoi National University, the very place that sent him to study before.

He is an expert on international politics and Vietnam's foreign policy.

In the early days of his career at Hanoi University, although he encountered many difficulties, at times seemingly insurmountable, thanks to the help of his friends and colleagues, the young lecturer Pham Quang Minh showed an undaunted spirit, was committed to his work, eager to learn and continued to strive. The outstanding difference about him was that since the late 1980s, in addition to his professional work, Pham Quang Minh quickly started learning English at the Evening Foreign Language Center located at Trung Vuong High School. He still remembers clearly the afternoons in 1988 - 1989, when everyone was resting or going out after a day of work, he had to "work and study at the same time". The story is that when he came to ask to teach Russian at Trung Vuong Foreign Language Center to make a living, he "discovered" that he could learn English there without paying because the Center gave priority to those who worked there. So from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. he was a Russian teacher, and from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. he was an English student. After two years of being both a teacher and a student, many days of hunger and power outages, his efforts were finally rewarded: a B-level English certificate. Not stopping there, he took the exam for the part-time English program of Hanoi University of Foreign Languages. And after a year of hard work and hardship, sometimes having to sell all the furniture in the house to study, he took the exam and got a C-level English certificate from Hanoi University of Foreign Languages. He often jokes that this is his "most valuable" certificate.

Growing up in Germany

In September 1991, with his accumulated work experience and outstanding English language skills at that time, he received a scholarship to study for a master's degree in the Federal Republic of Germany, majoring in Southeast Asian History and two minors in Political Science and European History. He still cannot forget the first day he arrived at Duesseldorf airport in the West of Germany, which was now unified, when he did not know a single word of German. However, with his high adaptability and integration ability, after only one year of active study, he took the exam and obtained the German proficiency certificate (PNDS) allowing him to study at German universities.

In July 1992, he returned to study at Passau University, a small but extremely beautiful city nicknamed "the meeting place of three rivers": Inn, Ilz and Danube, in the State of Bavaria (Germany), about 180km southwest of Munich. This is where he had the opportunity to be exposed to advanced, modern, open and interdisciplinary education. High requirements, focus on quality and conducted entirely in German, but the study materials were mostly in English were not small obstacles for a foreign student. But he overcame all those barriers, successfully completing the set goals. As a result, in 1996, he returned home with a master's degree with honors and immediately started contributing to the construction of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, which was newly established at that time. As Head of the Foreign Affairs Department, together with colleagues and with the experience accumulated during his time studying and researching abroad, he has built and developed international cooperative relationships, opening up many future cooperation opportunities for the School.

However, he realized the importance of continuing to train and improve his qualifications. Therefore, after 3 years of working, in 1999 he applied and was honored to receive a full scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to sponsor a PhD program in the Federal Republic of Germany. With his existing knowledge and experience, and the dedicated guidance of professors, after only 3 years he received a PhD degree with honors from a prestigious university in the world, the Humboldt University, a famous university and education reformer of 19th century Germany. This school was founded in 1810 and is recognized worldwide as the "midwife" of modern research universities. The spirit of Humboldt University is liberal and scientific, which has inspired all universities in the world from Europe, Asia to America. It can be said that while Pham Quang Minh learned systematically and systematically during his time in Russia, his time studying in Germany taught him logical thinking, critical thinking, straightforwardness and high discipline.

His doctoral thesis on the topic “Between Theory and Practice: Agricultural Policy in Vietnam from 1945 to Present" is highly appreciated for its theoretical and practical significance. The thesis has exploited a large amount of original documents in archives at both central and local levels, providing authentic and vivid understanding of Vietnamese history and politics. Approaching from an interdisciplinary perspective of historical science, political science and sociology, his thesis has solved a vital problem of Vietnam: agriculture, farmers and rural areas, while suggesting policy issues and construction practices in underdeveloped countries. Specifically, the thesis has the following conclusions.The first, the thesis argues that the history of Vietnam's development depends primarily and primarily on solving the rural problem. Making the right, timely and appropriate policies is important, but how those policies are implemented is equally important. The study has shown that there is a huge gap between the theory and the practice of development in Vietnam and the success or failure of the policy depends largely on the local cadres.Monday, most policies are issued “top-down”, but many policies are also born from “bottom-up” initiatives. It is the farmers, not anyone else, with their experience, knowledge and strength, who have created miracles and they are the real owners of their land. Land reform in the 1950s, agricultural collectivization in the 1960s - 1970s in the North or agricultural collectivization in the South in the 1970s - 1980s and the process of innovation, granting agricultural land use rights to farmers in the 1990s are vivid evidence of the development of rural Vietnam. The important thing is that policy makers must be aware of the actual situation, consider carefully and make timely decisions that are in line with the people's wishes.Tuesday, the reality also shows that with the current low average amount of agricultural land per capita, farmers cannot ensure their livelihood. At the same time, the fragmented and dispersed state of land cannot create conditions for investment, mechanization, and modernization of agriculture and as a result, it does not bring high productivity. Up to now, the conclusions of the thesis are still relevant.

After successfully defending his doctoral thesis at Humboldt University in 2002, his thesis immediately received attention from domestic and international researchers. Based on this research, for the first time, Dr. Pham Quang Minh was invited to present a report at the International Scientific Conference called “Vietnam Update” organized by the Australian National University (ANU) on the topic of “Ground-level Government in Vietnam”. Here, he presented the report “Between Theory and Practice: Grass-level Government in Hai Duong Province”. This report was published in Singapore in 2003 in the book “Beyond Hanoi: Local Government in Vietnam” edited by Prof. Ben T. Kerkvliert and Prof. David Marr.

In 2002, Dr. Pham Quang Minh was appointed as Vice Dean of the Faculty of International Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities and was assigned to teach and research a new field of politics and international relations of the region and Vietnam. With a foundation of knowledge, systematically trained from Russia and Germany, he learned, absorbed and quickly mastered the new field. He has chaired many scientific topics, compiled many lecture materials, guided many theses, dissertations and presented hundreds of scientific reports at domestic and international conferences from the US, Germany, France, China, Singapore, Thailand to Japan, Korea... He is a regular face appearing in international scientific forums. To date, he has published 4 books and more than 70 articles in scientific journals, of which more than 20 articles were published abroad, in a number of prestigious scientific journals of Oxford University, Berkeley University, Stanford University and many other publishers. In 2007, he was awarded the title of Associate Professor in History.

Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh received a Medal from Canadian Governor General David Johnston for his contributions to promoting Canadian research in Vietnam (November 2011).

“Persistence is the key”

That is the sincere sharing of Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh when he commented on the reasons for success in scientific research. For him, the main motivation to conduct scientific research is his own passion and perseverance, to pursue what he desires and contribute to the common development of the country. Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh once said:“For me, the only choice was to stick with the teaching profession, stick with the school where I took my first steps at the age of 16 and later guided generations of students. Until now, it is still a choice, a correct and wise decision.”It can be said that his scientific research process has a close relationship and interaction with his teaching career. For him, only on the basis of good scientific research can a teacher have good and attractive lectures, imparting useful knowledge to students and vice versa, while teaching and presenting, it is the questions, concerns and desires of students that motivate him to continue to carry out new research topics.

Since 2006, as Head of the Faculty of International Studies, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, a newly established faculty in 1995, he has worked tirelessly with his colleagues to gradually build the Faculty into a prestigious training and research unit at home and abroad, a trusted address for society. For his contributions and abilities, in 2012, he was appointed Vice Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, in charge of scientific research and postgraduate training.

Talking about the research direction of Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh is to mention topics that are rich in current events, have historical value, have ideas of innovation and international integration. His scientific topics focus mainly on issues such as: International relations in the Asia-Pacific region; Vietnam's international policies and relations and Comparative Politics. His typical scientific topics in recent years include: "Regionalism: Theoretical and Practical Issues”funded by the National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED); The topics "The formation of a new security architecture in Asia-Pacific and its impact on Vietnam"; “The process of forming Vietnam's foreign policy of innovation from 1986 to present"; "The triangular relationship between Vietnam - Soviet Union - China in the resistance war against the US 1954 - 1975"; "Reforms in Siam and Vietnam in the late 19th - early 20th century: Causes of success and failure"are all sponsored by Hanoi National University. In addition, he also presided over a project of Hanoi city "Main solutions to develop Hanoi's foreign information by 2020."In particular, he also conducted a number of research projects in collaboration with foreign scholars such as: "In search of an ASEAN Identification”(In Search of ASEAN Identity) sponsored by the Nippon Foundation, Japan; “The EU through the Eyes of Asia”(The European Union through the Eyes of Asia) sponsored by the Asia-Europe Foundation.

For his contributions to training and scientific research, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh has received many domestic and international awards. These include the Medal from the Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, for his contributions to promoting Canadian research in Vietnam during his state visit to Vietnam on November 17, 2011; the 2007 Good Book Award: “Reform movements in some East Asian countries in the mid-19th century - early 20th century" (Professor Vu Duong Ninh, editor-in-chief,Hanoi National University Publishing House 2007); Hanoi National University Outstanding Scientific Work Award 2012:“Vietnam's foreign policy of innovation 1986-2010”,World Publishing House 2012.

To achieve success in his scientific research, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh has overcome many difficulties and challenges with his passion for historical science. He is a model scientist with great creativity and sensitivity to current issues of the country and the world. The secret to his success is his modesty, constant learning and interaction with experts in the country, the region and the world. From his research, Associate Professor Dr. Pham Quang Minh wants to remind everyone to appreciate, preserve and promote the cultural and historical values ​​of the nation, and at the same time keep up with the trend of opening up, innovation and integration with the region and the world.