Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU) is the nation's leading university for scientific research and research policies. Scientific evaluation standards are strongly internationalized, which is appropriate in the context of Vietnam.

In 2019, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), one of the most prestigious and rigorous university ranking systems, has ranked TDTU among the world's top 1,000 universities.

Recently, in February 2020, TDTU was the only representative of Vietnam to be in the top 10 leading Asian research universities according to the Web of Science Database.

Student’s International publication: Endless energy source

In order to achieve these successes, in addition to the efforts of more than 1,300 lecturers and staffs of the University, we must mention the significant contributions of students, graduate students and doctoral students with many research projects as well as international works that are highly appreciated.

The University soon identified that the scientific researches of new students, graduate students and doctoral students is an annual and endless source of creativity, which is different from the creative abilities that will tend to go down in regard to  professional research staffs.

Therefore, in order to continuously improve the quality of education, science and technology in a sustainable way for the long term, as well as contributes in discovering and fostering scientific talents to have an inheritance team; TDTU has built development strategy of international publication for all 3 levels of studies (undergraduate students, graduate students and doctoral students).

For doctoral students, they must have at least 2 ISI publications for the natural engineering major and 1 ISI publication for the socio-economic major before submitting their doctoral dissertations.

For graduate students, the number of ISI/Scopus publications will be based on the number of graduates with specific norms:  at least 1 public ISI/Scopus publication must be conducted among 5 graduates in natural and technical majors, and at least 1 public ISI/Scopus publication must be conducted among 10 graduates in socio-economic majors.

This can be assessed to be very high standards in the situation like in Vietnam today. The University also conducts assignments of ISI / Scopus publication numbers to each lecturer and researcher who participates in supervising graduate students to conduct graduation thesis.

Scientific research at university level: Environment for fostering young scientists

For undergraduate students, at the beginning of each academic year, the University develops a detailed and oriented scientific research plan for international students. Scientific research of undergraduate students at TDTU is not a movement, but the University wants to create the initial launch pad for students to fly high, reach out in the future if they like the scientific pathway.

From research apprenticeship, TDTU students can be coached to develop research projects to the next level by instructors.

From a few thousand, we choose a few hundred, from a hundred, we choose a dozen, or a number of excellent groups to support, guide the development into proper research. It is the path for undergraduate students to announce ISI/Scopus internationally, which is also the path for them to recognize themselves or answer the question, "Can I choose the way to become researchers or not?"

For TDTU, finding and discovering among the thousands of new students who are admitted to University every year, finding and supporting the ones with the qualifications to become basic scientists, technology scientists or doing transferring research, which is the scientific research movement of students.

From the beginning of 2017 to the beginning of 2020, in the past three years, 29 TDTU undergraduate students participated in the international publication of ISI/Scopus with the number of 19 articles.

Especially, in the first 3 months of 2020, 4 ISI/Scopus works of students and graduate students were published. This is an inevitable result of the right policy, the spirit of passion for scientific research, and the best efforts of TDTU students.

The development of TDTU in higher education is therefore comprehensive and in-depth, close to the educational output standards of developed countries in the world.

Students with achievements in ISI/Scopus projects are very easy to receive scholarships from TDTU or major universities in the world for further studies or becoming graduate students abroad because they have shown that they are competent enough to implement the outcome standards for doctoral students.

With the goal of becoming an elite research university, among the top 200 best universities in the world in the next few decades, TDTU has developed a specific development plan and roadmap.

The comprehensive development from education to science and technology, internationalization as well as focusing on fostering students as a human resources in science, is the basis for achieving this goal of the University.