Vietnam Knowledge and Technology Transfer Ecosystem

3.5 Vietnam Knowledge and Technology Transfer Ecosystem

Angel investors: The number of angel investors is not much, but it starts to increase. Most of these are successful entrepreneurs who want to invest in startups in the next generation. Some overseas Vietnamese people or overseas Vietnamese students have been returning to Vietnam to participate in innovative entrepreneurship investments. Activities of angel investors in Vietnam have started to be more systematic by connecting and forming a number of clubs and investment networks for startups such as VIC Impact, iAngel or VCNetwork.co.

Credit providers: Recently, some banks have started offering interest rate support programs for start-up businesses such as Vietcombank, 40 Vietinbank, VPBank, and BIDV. For example, in March 2018, BIDV announced to spend VND 4,000 billion of preferential credit for start-up businesses. However, banks also share with innovatiion start-up enterprises. The assessment of intellectual property, business models and risks of these units still faces many difficulties.

Participation of corporations: The period from 2016 to 2017 witnessed the participation of many Vietnamese corporations in investing in startups such as FPT Investment Fund (FPTVentures), Viettel Investment Fund (Viettel Ventures), and CMC Creative Fund.

Innovation reative start-up activities have appeared in Vietnam since the year 2000s when the American Venture Capital Fund - IDG Ventures brought $ 100 million to invest in Vietnamese startups, creating the first wave of startups. Since then, this activity has increased both in quantity and quality. Investment funds from Australia, Singapore, and South Korea have come to Vietnam to find investment opportunities in innovative startups.

According to Echelon - one of the leading magazines on startups in Southeast Asia, Vietnam currently has about 3,000 startups. According to the statistics of Topica Founder Institute (TFI) 2017, Vietnam received 92 investment deals with a total capital of USD 291 million - nearly doubling the number of deals and nearly 50% of the total investment capital compared to 2016 (50 deals with USD 205 million). According to Tech in Asia , in 2017, Southeast Asia attracted USD 7.86 billion of investment in start-ups - thus, the amount of Vietnamese investment attracted is very small. However, the investment capital attracted in 2018 is USD 889 million, 3 times higher than 2017. This shows that technology transfer and start-up activities are strongly concerned in Vietnam.

Incubators

The model of enterprise incubation appeared in Vietnam over the past 10 years and has been increasingly paid attention to. It is considered as one of the most effective tools to support businesses in the early stages of development. Vietnam has formed a number of incubation models or a number of organizations that function as incubators, such as: HBI Incubator; Hoa Lac High-Tech Business Incubator of Hoa Lac High-Tech Park; incubator established by Tinh Van Informatics Technology Company; incubator established by FPT company; High-tech business incubator that belongs to High-Tech Park (Saigon HiTech Park), technology business incubation center of Ho Chi Minh City Polytechnic University, Quang Trung software incubator, etc. Most of incubators are concentrated in big centers such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and mainly state-owned. Recently, many incubators have been put into operation in localities such as Vietnam - Korea Industrial Technology Incubator (in Can Tho), Can Tho University Technology Business Incubator, and many enterprises' incubators such as workspaces Up-Co, Dreamplex, Circo, I.Value(3), etc.

Incubators are established by private companies, state and domestic and foreign organizations to support incubation development.

Science park

Currently governments have established large science parks in different regions such as Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City with thousands of billions Vietnamese dong. However, the level of attracting companies, the level of infrastructure development, the comprehensiveness, as well as the development of enterprises in science parks is still limited.

High-tech parks have not been completed and developed (2/3 of high-tech parks). Although attracting FDI and domestic enterprises to invest, infrastructure development is limited and far from the center (Hoa Lac). There is no close connection with related parties so that the development is not as expected.

Government

The Government has issued many laws and documents to support intellectual and technological transfer, as well as to establish many relevant agencies such as the National Assembly's Technology Transfer Act 2017, No. 07/2017/QH14; the National Technology Innovation Fund (NATIF) and the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund that are being expanded by the Government to target start-up businesses. (https://startup.vnexpress.net/tin-tuc/xu-huong/von-chinh-phu-tu-nhan-thoi-luong-gio-moi-cho-startup-viet-3698050.html);

Project 844; Project on supporting women to start a business in the 2017-2025 period in Decision No. 939/QD-TTg dated June 30, 2017 and Project on supporting students to start a business in Decision No. 1665/QD-TTg dated October 30, 2017.

The Government has focused on implementing the following main contents:

• Creating an international environment favorable for innovation start-up development

• Step by step building legal corridors, supporting the formation and development of national entrepreneurial ecosystems

• Gradually improving the capacity to implement innovation start-up activities.

• Organizing activities to connect, communicate and provide S&T information to promote creative entrepreneurial movement

• Efforts of the Ministry of Science and Technology, ministries, branches, localities, social organizations and associations.

Industry

According to the FIRST project, strong and weak industries of Vietnam (based on the level of scientific impact and specialization index compared to the world average level) are shown in Figure 1.3. below. Thereby, Vietnam is strong in the following sectors:

• Group 1: Soil and environmental science, and biomedical research

• Group 2: Mathematics, agriculture, biology, physics and information technology and communication (highly specialized index)

• Group 3: Clinical medicine, and engineering (high in terms of scientific impact)

• Group 4: Chemistry, strategic support technology (low)

Export advantages are only in some sectors such as textiles, clothing, food processing, non-metallic minerals, radio, television and telecommunications, some electrical equipment and rubber products.

Vietnam needs to select a path of innovative labor-based productivity to promote economic development as emphasized in a joint research report between the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

In summary, innovation activities in Vietnamese enterprises are very low and ineffective.

Therefore, it is necessary to speed up technology and innovation activities at the school level, researchers and technology transfer to businesses should be boosted to help businesses improve their competitiveness.

Service providers

Currently, 2017 marked a strong activity of innovative startup support organizations like BK-Holdings, Vietnam Young Start-up Network (VYE), VCCI, Innovatube, etc. The Program named Vietnam Mentors Initiative (VMI) in 2017 organized 03 training courses to connect mentors with the participation of 83 representatives of start-up groups in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Thap. International organizations from Finland, Israel, United Kingdom, Australia, and some others are also very interested and join hands to support the development of innovation.

In general, there are many organizations that support mentoring activities for start-up groups. However, the approach between the two parties has not been effective because the communication activities, as well as the databases of these companies have not been updated and disseminated to start-up groups.

Center for knowledge and technology transfer

The establishment of a technology transfer office (TTO) in universities has become an extensive institutional mechanism to support researchers’s findings and obtaining license fees and royalties (Correa and Zuñiga 2013). TTO offers a range of services to improve technology transfer cycles, such as patent application process, licensing agreement, partner search and funding, and training and support in creating university-based spin-offs.

At present, knowledge and technology transfer centers are only a part of the functions of universities. Therefore, the KTT implementation is still limited and the implementation results are not very satisfactory. Many research marketable results have not been commercialized.

Students

The National Start-up Day for students in 2018 is held on December 15-16, 2018 with the participation of a total of about 80 projects. The contest "Students with start-up ideas - SWIS 2018"

is organized on a national scale with the participation of more than 200 universities, colleges, intermediate schools and high schools (200,000 students in total).

Currently, universities also have entrepreneurship/startups competitions to encourage students to participate, especially Hanoi University of Technology, University of Foreign Trade, National Economics University, Ho Chi Minh City Economics University, Lotus University, etc.

The Youth Science Innovation Contest was organized in 2017 and 2018 with the participation of 110 teams. There were 70 teams in 2017 and 40 teams in 2018.

However, entrepreneurship and innovation knowledge for students is limited.

3.5.2 Current status of the knowledge and technology transfer ecosystem at Hanoi University of Science and Technology

So far at the University of Hanoi, there have been the following parties in the KTT ecosystem:

• Research groups from faculties, departments, institutes

• Department of Science Management

• Bkholding

• Students

In terms of potential, Hanoi University of Science and Technology is one of the leading technology schools in Vietnam with a number of high-quality officials to 26 professors, , 237 associate proffesors, and 514 PhDs, with a total of 30000 students per year. Total funding for research is USD 2-3 million/year from various sources. The number of annual ISI/scopus articles is 200 - 250 articles. As of 2017, the school's total number of intellectual property registrations is 119 applications (of which 69 are exclusive applications and mainly at the national level), in the main areas of chemistry, food biotechnology, mechanics, textile, etc. The license contract value is not clear.

Technology transfer activities are mainly technological consultancy, which are carried out at faculties or institutes at a small and individual scale. The TT value is not high. Researchers are not well aware of intellectual property laws as well as the role of technology transfer in research and training at universities. Figure 1.4 shows the transfer values over the years of Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

Many training programs to promote the entrepreneurial spirit of students have been organized by Bkholding and the Department of Science Management, attracting great interest of students. Besides, many programs for researchers are also organized with the sponsorship of projects (E+: NutriSEA, VETEC…; …..) in order to improve general knowledge about starting a business and entrepreneurship .

In the context of university autonomy today, the further promotion of technology transfer activities will enhance the reputation of the University with enterprises and communities, creating opportunities for cooperation and funding from enterprises for applied research activities for Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

Moreover, the establishment of a technology transfer office (TTO) in universities has become an extensive institutional mechanism to support researchers findings to commercialize their products and obtaining license fees and royalties (Correa and Zuñiga 2013). TTO offers a range of services to improve technology transfer cycles, such as patent application process, licensing agreement, partner search and funding, and training and support in creating university-based spin-offs.

The lack of a team specialized in technology transfer at Hanoi University of Science and Technology is a weakness. Thus, the formation of such team to undertake the technology transfer activities is necessary, creating a better connection between Hanoi University of Science and Technology and the community.

3.5.3 Conclusion

Knowledge and technology transfer activities in Vietnam are weak, partly reflected in Figure 1.5. Therefore, the establishment of a technology transfer center will help the connection between universitiesies and businesses become closer. Especially, businesses have a low and ineffective fundings for research and development

References

Yusuf, S. and Nabeshima, K. (2007). “University-Industry Links: Policy Dimensions.” In How Universities Promote Economic Growth, Pages 1–26. Washington DC.: World Bank.

Ha, T.T.T. (2018). Khởi nghiệp và sáng tạo. Cục thông tin và khoa học công nghệ quốc gia.

Correa, P., and Zuñiga. P. (2013). “Public Policies to Foster Knowledge Transfer from Public Research Organizations.” Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Global Practice, Public Policy Brief. World Bank,.Washington DC.

Huan, L. M. (2018). Global Entrepreneurship Monitor Vietnam 2017/2018. VCCI. Thanh Nien Publishing house. https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem-vietnam-20172018-report-executive-summary.

(2018). Viet Nam innovation index. https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_gii_2018-profile56.pdf

Figure 1.1: Knowledge and technology transfer ecosystem

Figure 1.2: Economic development stages of Vietnam

Figure 1.3 STI capacity of Vietnam according to FRIST’s assessment

Figure 1.4: Value of technology transfer at Hanoi University of Science and Technology

Figure 1.5: Vietnam start-up capacity

Figure 1.6. Vietnam's innovation index

4. The Researcher