The Vietnam University Rankings (VNUR) has just announced the results of the 2023 ranking for higher education institutions in Vietnam. According to the website of the Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam currently has 223 higher education institutions, but VNUR only selects the top 100 higher education institutions, ranking these institutions.

VNUR uses 6 ranking criteria with specific proportions as follows:

Recognized quality (30%) including 6 criteria:

-Global or regional ranking such as QS, THE, ARWU ...

-Accreditation of educational institutions according to a set of regional and international standards.

-Accreditation of training programs according to regional and international standards.

-Accreditation of educational institutions according to domestic standards.

-Accreditation of training programs according to domestic standards.

-Ratings are determined based on ratings data collected from QS Star and UPM publications.

Teaching (25%) consists of 2 criteria:

-The ratio of the number of students to one lecturer.

-The ratio of the number of lecturers with PhD degrees to the total number of lecturers.

Publication of scientific articles (20%) consists of 3 criteria:

-The number of scientific articles published by the whole school according to the Web of Science for a period of 5 consecutive years.

-The productivity of scientific paper publication of the whole school according to the Web of Science is calculated as the ratio of the total number of papers published by the Web of Science over a continuous 2-year period to the total number of lecturers in the same period.

-The influence of scientific papers throughout the school published under Web of Science is calculated as the proportion of the total number of citations across the entire paper published by Web of Science in the year of VNUR's ranking.

Science and technology tasks and inventions (10%) include 2 criteria:

-Science and technology tasks at the State, Ministries, provinces and cities and grassroots levels in the last 3 years.

-The number of patents published in Vietnam in the last 3 years.

Learner quality (10%) consists of 2 criteria:

Entrance admission benchmarks are determined by the highest and lowest benchmarks to enter the school, by the method of considering national high school graduation test scores.

The percentage of graduates with employment is collected from the Public Three reports, and the Higher Education Institution's Annual Enrollment Scheme.

Facilities (5%) consist of 2 criteria:

-The ratio of the floor area of the whole school to each student, determined based on the information of the three public reports, combined with the Admission Scheme published annually by the university.

-Number of e-boooks, number of printed books, number of database sources... is determined based on the information of the three public reports in conjunction with the Admissions Scheme published annually by the university.

-The standards, criteria and practices from collecting to processing data for ranking, it can be seen that VNUR's ranking results are very elaborate and scientific.

-The criteria used for ranking can basically reflect the quality of a university. In particular, VNUR used data that only experts in Vietnam can know.

The use of public data from universities, will undoubtedly make an important contribution to the standardization of public information from universities in the near future. In the ranking criteria, VNUR uses 30% of the proportion of scientific research (but it can actually be up to 38% if a higher education institution gets a full 8% score from the university ranking where scientific research accounts for 100% such as ARWU or US News).

Top 10 universities and universities according to VNUR (screenshot)

The interesting point is that VNUR has criteria / evaluation methods that the rankings of prestigious universities in the world such as SCImago, ARWU, THE, US News or QS do not have such as:

Integrating the results of university rankings of other prestigious university rankings in the world.

Using the results of university accreditation, program accreditation ... from country to region, international.

Using achievements from domestic science and technology tasks, domestic inventions.

Use entrance admission points, building floor area, academic materials in the library.

This is a very subtle approach of VNUR, and the above differences have created a unique taste for VNUR's ranking.

Another difference can be seen, VNUR is an absolute objective ranking, in the sense of not depending on the data provided from universities.

Based on the information from the website, it can be seen that VNUR is independent in building data and independent of rankings, not inviting universities to submit data or not depending on surveys / votes such as QS, THE.

This is the 2nd time that an additional ranking of universities for universities in Vietnam has been conducted by Vietnamese experts.

There used to be a group of experts ranking for the top 49 universities in Vietnam, known as the group of 49. Once there is a ranking, there is always one university ranked higher than the other and vice versa, although the statistics in terms of statistics may not differ much.

However, ranking for universities is always necessary, as it is a very useful reference channel for the universities themselves, then parents, students and the whole society.

In fact, it is difficult to have a comprehensive university ranking, which means that it can satisfy all communities.

Therefore, it is inevitable that controversy or mixed opinions around university rankings are inevitable. However, it is more useful to have practical feedback to make university rankings better, and the experts who lead university rankings should also be open to continuing to promote their strengths and improve their inconsistencies so that the next rankings will be more and more optimal.

Congratulations to high-ranking universities, and to the top 100 universities in Vietnam.

Congratulations to VNUR for making a very interesting contribution, and hopefully it will be very rewarding for the academic community.

Dr. Le Van Ut - Van Lang University