Solutions to promote international publication in social sciences and humanities?

The changes are still slow.

International publications by Vietnamese social sciences and humanities researchers before the year 2000 were not only monotonous and meager in quantity but also weak in quality. Research published in prestigious international journals was mostly conducted by Vietnamese graduate students and overseas Vietnamese. For decades, we did not require scientists to publish internationally, and tended to look down on international publications in social sciences due to an unreasonable perception that only those who shared the same ideology and political outlook as the West could publish internationally.

In fact, we have been away from the international academic arena for too long and only woke up in the early 2000s. Although late, this shows that there has been an important change in perception, from denial and contempt, to the recognition that only international publications can determine the true value of Vietnamese social sciences and humanities.

Looking at statistics from different sources, both macro and micro, we can see that there have been positive changes when the number and quality of scientific articles published internationally have increased quite steadily over the past decade. Putting the number of publications in the Web of Science (ISI) category of Vietnam in comparison with ASEAN countries, we see that Vietnam has a gradually increasing number of ISI international publications, from 190 articles (2013) to 487 articles (2018), ranking behind Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Vietnam's ISI international publications in the past 5 years (2013 - 2018) have moved from 66th (2013) to 49th in the world (2018) but are still behind the three countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

A Scopus data analysis team at Thanh Tay University collected information from 412 Vietnamese scientists who published scientific papers on the Scopus system in the past ten years (2008 - 2018).[1]. This group has compared information collected from different sources to learn about the authors of the articles and the publication situation, providing some noteworthy information about Vietnamese researchers who have published scientific articles on the Scopus system, for example, authors with international publications on the Scopus system are mainly in the group with working age from 15 to 25 years while the age group over 40 has the fewest international publications; The average output in the past 10 years is only 3.6 articles/author; up to 75% of the authors have never had any independent research articles in the past year. The leading role of the authors in the articles is low, only at 1.77 articles...[2]

Recently, many institutes and schools have organized workshops and training courses to improve international publication capacity. In the photo: Professor Mark Turner, from the University of New South Wales, trained the school's staff and lecturers in April 2018.

Studying a specific case such as the University of Social Sciences and Humanities under VNU can provide us with a clearer view of the trend of international publication in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities. Statistics over a period of 9 years (2010 - 2018) show that international publications of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities have made a spectacular step forward, from only 7 international publications in 2010 to 79 in 2018. In particular, the number of articles in the ISI/Scopus category has increased significantly, from no articles in 2010 to 22 in 2018, showing that international publications have not only increased in quantity but also the quality of articles has been significantly improved.

However, the fact is that the number of articles has increased but is still mainly concentrated in a certain number of authors who have been trained or studied abroad, mostly in the age group of 30 to 50, and often have international publications. For example, in the 2017-2018 school year, the year the school had the highest number of international publications, only 54 staff participated in writing articles (as authors or co-authors) of 79 international publications, an average of 1.5 articles/author, although some people published from 3 to 4 international articles/year. Compared to the school's potential of 344 lecturers, including 70 associate professors, 5 professors, 133 people with doctoral degrees and 147 people with master's degrees, the number of people with international publications is still very modest.

However, these changes do not seem to have had a widespread impact in the academic world. Among the fields with the lowest number of publications on the Scopus system, social sciences ranked second to last, with 13/14 fields having the fewest articles (Duy Tan University Research Group, 2018).[3]There is a sad reality that many social science researchers are still unfamiliar with international publications, not only do they have no idea about international scientific journals but also "struggle to write two articles for domestic journals each year" (Nguyen Thi Hien, 2016).[4]

The Religion of Four Palaces: Mediumship and Therapy in Vietnamese Culture, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing by Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Hien in 2015

What is the cause?

Based on the opinions expressed by scientists and from the experiences of scientists and from the experiences of the Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities, we temporarily attribute the causes to a few basic groups below.

The first,The underlying cause of the current weak state of international publication in the field of social sciences and humanities lies in the process of training researchers, from undergraduate to graduate and doctoral levels. Although the construction of research universities has been stirred up for a long time, in most universities, the training programs and training methods are still maintained as they were decades ago. We have not really transformed the training method towards research, but still focus on providing information and one-way knowledge while learners often passively absorb knowledge, have little creativity, little interaction between students and lecturers, and especially lack the spirit of scientific criticism. Opportunities to access scientific information sources outside of lectures are very limited while research skills and methods, scientific writing are often not focused on in many subjects and fields of study. Because they are not familiar with how to conduct scientific research, present research results and write a scientific paper, they are often confused when starting to do scientific research after graduation.

Monday,The importance and urgency of international publication have not been seriously recognized at the level of scientific managers and researchers. Up to now, apart from the NAFOSTED Foundation and a few major universities, which have been very determined in requiring research grantees to publish internationally,[5]Other scientific funding agencies still seem to regard this requirement as a formal reference criterion, even though this criterion has been lowered to the lowest level. Many scientific topics often ask for solutions to specific problems of the industry or the unit while scientific topics are fragmented, not forming a scientific whole, losing scientific creativity and the sense of responsibility of the project leader. Reward measures (both material and spiritual) in some scientific agencies and universities are still mainly for encouragement, rather than becoming a national policy approved and operated in the entire research and training system.

Tuesday,The issue of foreign language is often mentioned as a major barrier to international publication. This is a reality that cannot be overlooked. The majority of researchers in scientific institutions and universities are currently trained domestically. They have little access to foreign sources of documents, rarely participate in scientific conferences and international cooperation, so they are vague about the world scientific community and do not update new discussions or discoveries in their research fields. Due to not being exposed to the international academic atmosphere regularly, the feeling of alienation and hesitation about international publication is understandable. In the policy of recruiting scientists and PhD students, foreign language is often set as a mandatory requirement but still at a low level and is a formality.

Wednesday,The poor state of scientific journals has a significant impact on the requirement for international publication. Domestic scientific journals accept scientific articles for publication and are lenient in the selection, review, revision and quality improvement stages. Editorial boards and editors often scrutinize and cut out elements that are considered “politically sensitive” rather than focusing on technical content when deciding to publish. Articles are often hesitant to raise scientific debates and do not integrate their research into common concerns being discussed by other scholars. The lack of international standards and little innovation in domestic scientific journals creates a rut, a style of easy thinking in writing articles, and this way of doing things leads to the notion of difference and Vietnamese specificity instead of following international standards and practices, making the quality of scientific publications only a formality and lacking real quality.

Finalis international cooperation and the creation of an academic atmosphere in the professional community. In fact, every year we organize many scientific conferences, workshops and seminars with the participation of international scholars. However, these activities seem to be more formal than practical, not paying attention to the practical effectiveness of scientific output. The situation of "afternoon market" (winter in the morning, quiet in the afternoon) is seen in many scientific conferences. Researchers come to speak and leave, very few scientific debates and criticisms are raised, making the conference boring and useless. Experience shows that research cooperation topics with the participation of international scholars (leaders, participants or direct consultants) are often highly effective, resulting in international publications. However, perhaps due to limited funding, these types of topics are often supported from abroad while domestic sponsors are still very cautious.

Excavation of Luy Lau relic. Photo: Nhu Thuan

Proposed solution

How to overcome the causes of the above mentioned weaknesses? In our opinion, there are five groups of solutions that need to be continued and expanded.

First of all,To be fair, over the past decade, the cash reward policy to support the promotion of international publication has brought positive results. Since 2010, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has had a publication reward policy, supporting from 5 to 10 million VND/article published internationally and over 1.5 million VND/article published in high-index journals in the ISI and Scopus groups. In 2018, the school decided to support from 100 to 200 million VND for monographs and scientific proceedings published internationally. Thanks to such timely and strong policies, the number and quality of publications of the school have increased rapidly in recent times. However, it should be recognized that this solution needs to be supported by a series of other regulations such as salary increases, appointment of scientific titles of Professor and Associate Professor, funding for scientific research projects and participation in international conferences, and academic contacts to maintain sustainable impact. Many universities in the ASEAN and East Asia regions also use this economic leverage to promote international publications. For projects receiving financial support from public funds, there should be specific policies requiring researchers to commit to publishing results in international scientific journals when receiving funding instead of organizing acceptance and then storing them in a cabinet as has been done. Of course, scientific topics related to national security need to have their own regulations.

Monday,In the long term, it is necessary to fundamentally change university training towards research instead of maintaining the outdated one-way knowledge transfer teaching method. Students from the third year onwards should be encouraged to do scientific projects within the framework of training according to the "project-based learning”,Studying while practicing research and writing scientific reports under the guidance of professors. Through such research topics, students learn methods, access new information, learn how to debate scientifically and have enough confidence to participate in scientific topics after graduation. In addition to formal training, schools, research institutes and scientific journals should open regular or periodic training courses on research methods and writing skills according to international standards for researchers. Reputable international experts can be invited to share information and guide the necessary skills.

Tuesday,Domestic scientific journals need to strongly shift towards internationalization in terms of article content, peer review, editing skills and increase international exchanges through various academic exchange channels. This approach will help overcome the lax situation that is still seen in publishing scientific articles, and train researchers to write articles with standards, so that they are not too unfamiliar with international practices. In addition, the management of scientific journals should be assigned to the Ministry of Science and Technology instead of being managed by the Department of Press and Propaganda as it is now. Scientific journals have strict professional requirements and are different from media propaganda activities, and need to be managed by specialized scientific councils.

Wednesday,In addition to the requirements for academic content, there should be a language support policy for international publications in the field of social sciences and humanities. Writing in one's mother tongue is already a difficulty, writing in a foreign language to convey one's knowledge to the international scientific community and for foreigners to understand is a huge challenge, even for those who have been formally trained abroad. Social sciences are not just stories, but ideas, thoughts, arguments, and debates in scientific language. Journals with high citation indexes never spend money to print articles that are poor and poorly written. Normally, journals published in English require that articles be reviewed by language experts who speak English as their mother tongue. The experience of some Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, China, and Japan is that before being submitted to a journal, articles will be read and edited by a native speaker for language before being sent to reviewers. After an article is accepted for publication with a request for editing, someone who is fluent in the language of the article is needed to help edit it according to standard language.

Thursday,Strengthening international cooperation activities at various levels, from participating in international scientific conferences, exchanging expertise, opening training courses on writing articles to joint research, is the shortest way for Vietnamese scientists to learn the necessary skills and work in an academic atmosphere according to international standards. In addition to seeking scientific funding from outside, domestic funding funds should also have policies to encourage international cooperation, expand international networks in science, especially international publishing. NAFOSTED's policy on supporting scientists to participate in international scientific activities shows that this is a good experience that needs to be replicated.

Conclude

Scientific publication is actually just the final step in a series of research activities, but international publication is an important and necessary activity to affirm professional quality and scientific transparency. For social sciences, international publication is not only to disseminate Vietnamese knowledge to the scientific community, but also to introduce the country and people of Vietnam to the world, and at the same time to show gratitude to those who have paid taxes to contribute money to their scientific activities. And that is the political duty of a person doing scientific research.

To improve the quantity and quality of scientific publications, a series of complementary solutions and long-term efforts are needed, not only from scientific management agencies but also from the cooperation and efforts of researchers themselves to assert themselves.

Posted in Tia Sang Magazine No. 04 - February 20, 2019