Social Sciences and Humanities account for 28% of Scopus publications
According to Dr. Nghiem Xuan Huy (Deputy Head of Science and Technology Department, Hanoi National University), in the total number of scientific publications in the Scopus system in the period 2010-2015, publications in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities accounted for 28%. Also in the Scopus system, there are currently about 3,198 sources publishing works in the field of Humanities, 5,766 sources publishing works in the field of Social Sciences, and 1,256 sources publishing works in the field of Psychology. Thus, in terms of both publication sources and the popularity of the number of articles, Social Sciences and Humanities in the Scopus system is not inferior to any other science (Source: SCIMAGO).
In the ISI system - a system that is considered to be more rigorous than Scopus - in the period 2010 - 2015, there were 246,718 articles published in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities, of which 134,150 articles (54%) were in the field of Social Sciences and 112,568 articles (46%) were in the field of Humanities.
Overview of the discussion/Photo: Tran Minh
This proves that the field of social sciences and humanities receives a lot of attention from the world. Social sciences and humanities are not “inferior”, there are even many sources of publication for researchers to access and choose to publish their works.
Also on Scopus in the period 2010-2015, Vietnam's international publications in the field of social sciences and humanities were 1,756, an average of 320 articles/year, accounting for about 0.07% of the total number of social sciences and humanities articles in the world. This is a modest rate. Meanwhile, the corresponding publication data of the Southeast Asian region was 52,167 articles, accounting for about 2% of the world's social sciences and humanities articles, an average of 9,485 articles/year.
On the ISI system, Vietnam published 89 articles, accounting for 0.04% of the total number of publications on ISI (period 2010-2015).
Vietnam's international publications in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities have mainly focused on the fields of Linguistics, Anthropology, Economics - Finance and Management Science. The field of Psychology has only focused on Applied Psychology and Social Psychology.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Kim - Party Secretary, Vice Principal of the School spoke at the seminar
Among the 24 groups of fields that are noted on both ISI and Scopus, Vietnam has only integrated a very limited number of fields. Thus, Vietnam's international integration capacity in the field of social sciences and humanities is still modest, considering both the number of fields with publications and the number of articles posted on the two systems above, and is quite far behind other countries in the region.
Dr. Nghiem Xuan Huy commented: some areas that the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU has strengths in such as Psychology, Anthropology, Language, Communication, Culture, History, etc., the world trend is that they are also focusing on these areas. This is also an opportunity for the University to promote its strengths and integrate with the world.
Need practical policies
Opinions indicate that major research centers in social sciences and humanities in Vietnam do not have practical strategies and plans to implement and promote international publication activities. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct further in-depth studies on development trends in the field of social sciences and humanities to have a research orientation strategy suitable for high integration capacity.
Dr. Nghiem Xuan Huy (Deputy Head of Science and Technology Department, Vietnam National University, Hanoi) presented a report on international publications in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities: international trends and Vietnamese practices.
According to Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh (Faculty of Anthropology), 2/3 of the international publications of Malaysia and Singapore are by foreign scholars from the US, Europe and other Southeast Asian countries. Countries in the region have invested heavily to invite foreign scholars to collaborate and all have provisions for international publications under the name of Malaysia or Singapore. Thus, their international publications are numerous but are due to great international cooperation.
Therefore, if Vietnam does not participate more strongly in research programs with international cooperation elements and international conferences, it will be very difficult to promote international publication or publication, even if our research is very good, very new, very special - Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh said.
Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh said that another limitation of Vietnam is that although there are many topics, the publication efficiency is low because there are no binding or mandatory regulations for international publications, especially for large topics. Currently, in the country, most researchers are interested in publishing monographs or publishing articles in domestic scientific journals because they are scored. International cooperation project topics are completely excluded from the scoring system for conferring academic titles and degrees. This is different from foreign universities, which all have a scoring system based on international publications to consider conferring academic titles and degrees and increasing salaries. For example, at Singapore University, if there are 3 articles published in the ISI system, the salary will be increased by one level.
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh speaks at the seminar
According to Dr. Pham Hong Long (Faculty of Tourism Studies), there should be practical and sustainable policies to support and encourage scientists with achievements in international publications, not just the current forms of incentives. Every year, universities in Vietnam must organize field research trips and connect with scholars from other countries to conduct investigations and produce common research results.
Dr. Nguyen Truong Giang (Faculty of Anthropology) suggested: Young researchers should be given the opportunity to regularly access high-ranking journals to grasp the trends and concerns of the scientific community in the world. Lecturers should be given time to do research. The school should organize many talks by experts to share experiences on international publications.
Associate Professor, Dr. Trinh Anh Tung believes that in addition to scientific journals in English, we can think of the option of publishing internationally in journals using another language to increase opportunities.
Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Vu Hao (Faculty of Philosophy) commented: From a management perspective, the School must thoroughly educate all lecturers to consider international publications as an important measure of research and teaching activities. The School should have regulations on increasing salaries ahead of schedule for lecturers with international publications and establish a publishing service center to support translation, searching, and appraisal of scientific articles for international publications.
Dr. Vo Minh Vu (Faculty of Oriental Studies) suggested: in order for the world to know more about the domestic scientific community, Vietnamese scientists need to proactively participate in international scientific activities such as standing up as representatives to build a research database system, standing up to register to organize international conferences... There is no need to focus too much on the ISI or Scopus system, we can pay attention to narrower environments such as Japan, China...; create cooperative links between faculties and partners in the region; provide personal funding for research depending on topics and projects; increase translation activities in science.
Highly appreciating the contributions of teachers at the seminar, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Kim (Party Secretary, Vice Principal of the School) affirmed: The international publications of the School's scientific staff have made significant progress in the past few years but are still not commensurate with the potential. The School has integrated the content and requirements of international publications into the school year plan, the School's development orientations, the orientations for developing and building a research university of the School. The School has also implemented regulations and reward levels for scientific works published in international journals, as well as providing support for lecturers and scientists to attend international conferences. In parallel with continuing to maintain the existing support mechanism, the School will continue to have priorities for the pioneering staff who dare to commit, invest a lot of time and effort in international publications in influential journals or participate in the internationalized teaching process. Other proposals on building strong research groups, international research cooperation groups, supporting translation according to international academic standards, etc. will be considered by the School for implementation in the coming time.
Author:Thanh Ha
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