The University of Science and Technology (DUT), a member school of the University of Da Nang (UD), is one of the first 4 Vietnamese universities meeting the international quality standards set by t he High Council Evaluation of Research and Higher Education in France (HCERES). Over the past 47 years, a large number of DUT graduates have grasped crucial job posts in state agencies, businesses, and educational establishments in the Central Viet Nam and Central Highlands regions and the entire country at large. With its long history, potential and experience in educational training and scientific research, DUT is dubbed as the "leading bird" of the UD in pioneering innovation and integration into the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Smart Campus Building of the DUT- a place incubating innovation aspirations. (Photo courtesy of the university)

Providing elite training with international quality

Taking the educational philosophy of ‘Thinking - Creativity – Kindness’, ‘Innovation and Creativity’ as one of the three core values, DUT soon laid a firm foundation for elite training by implementing the Vietnamese-French Training Program of excellent Engineers (PFIEV, since 1999); Vietnamese - US advanced programme (2006), Vietnamese - Japanese advanced programme (2008). For the time being, the school is operating 16 academic programmes meeting international standards (CTI of Europe and AUN - QA of Southeast Asia).

Since hosting the announcement ceremony of the development of engineering training programmes, equivalent to a master's degree, level 7 in the national qualification framework, with seven leading technical universities in Viet Nam in 2020, DUT has opened six new bachelor's, one master’s and three PhD training programmes involved in such majors as Aviation Mechanics, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Computer Engineering, Industrial and Systems Engineering, Infrastructure Engineering. The aim is to serve the human resource demands for spearhead industries, high technology and source technology.

Currently, DUT is continuously innovating and deploying advanced teaching and learning methods similar to prestigious universities such as approaching CDIO (Conceive - Design - Implement - Operate), Project-Based Learning - PBL, final assignment Capstone Project, learning from real experience (Learning Express), based on STEM education combining science, technology, engineering and mathematics for its students.

In addition to the professional knowledge, the duration of practice and doing experiments at labs, projects, internships and learning foreign languages has been significantly increased.

According to Assoc. Prof. Dr Doan Quang Vinh, the Rector of DUT, the school's breakthrough changes help students gain confidence, accumulate knowledge, skills and professional qualifications to proactively adapt themselves to any working environments and meet the requirements of the domestic and international labour market in parallel with reaching the goal of 100% of students having jobs, starting up and becoming ‘global citizens’.

Aside from that, the university's scientists and lecturers have many research projects published internationally at prestigious conferences and scientific journals and won the Vietnam Science and Technology Innovation Awards.

A host of useful technology projects and solutions have been applied and granted with protection certificates, thereby contributing to solving urgent problems facing localities and businesses in different fields for the sake of sustainable development.

Moreover, the school’s students have continuously achieved outstanding results at a host of competitions such as the Viet Nam National Olympiad in Informatics, Automation Project-Based Learning Competition, Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS), IT idea seeking competition UAVS Hackatrix and International Architectural Design Competition. Every year, dozens of graduates receive post-graduate transfer scholarships in developed countries.

So far, the city's action programmes and projects aiming to develop Da Nang into an ‘innovation and start-up centre’ and a ‘smart city’ by 2030, with a vision to 2045, has inspired the DUT’s scientists, lecturers to offer plans and accompany the city during the journey.

According to Assoc. Prof. Dr Nguyen Tan Khoi, Dean of Faculty of Information Technology, with the strength of 12 consecutive years leading the nation's readiness index rankings for the development and application of information technology ( according to Viet Nam ICT Index), Da Nang needs to accelerate its roadmap of creating technology infrastructure for digital transformation, building e-government and developing the digital economy, while focusing on protecting fundamental values, ensuring personal data and network security.

Dr Nguyen Le Hoa, Dean of the Faculty of Advanced Science and Technology, suggested that the city could build a common foundation of technology and publish it to investors to exploit, thereby mobilizing and stimulating businesses to innovate and form Da Nang into a ‘smart city’.

This is similar to the model of ‘smart university - smart campus’ bringing LoRa network technology, green, clean and saved- energy technology into the application right in the DUT’s buildings in cooperation with Nice Sophia Antipolics University, Republic of France.

Meanwhile, Assoc. Prof. Dr Nguyen Dinh Lam, Chairman of the University Council, suggested that the city form a national innovation and entrepreneurship centre in Da Nang with the core component being universities to gather a network of experts together to do research and test 4.0 applications and solutions.

Moreover,  focusing on STEM and foreign language training for students from high school, creating a mechanism to encourage investors and businesses to share social responsibility with human resource training schools will meet the national technological innovation programme by 2030, promoting innovation becomes the ‘key’ to help restore business’s production as well as economic growth to het through challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.   

 Reporting by HAI ĐANG- Translating by T.VY