History

1. THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HANOI (1956-1995)

In 1956, in response to the requirement of scientific development, which required a developed higher education, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 2183/TC (June 4^th, 1956), establishing 15 professional high schools and 5 universities: the University of Hanoi, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi University of Education, University of Medicine and Pharmacy and University of Agriculture and Forestry. Professor Nguy Nhu Kon Tum was appointed Rector of the University of Hanoi.

1.1. From 1956-1965: The first stage of development.

On October 15^th,1956, the opening ceremony of the first academic year of the University of Hanoi was held at the Great Hall of the University of Vietnam (19 Le Thanh Tong, Hanoi today) with the participation of 430 students from three faculties: Mathematics-Physics, Chemistry-Biology; Literature-History. Therefore, October 15^th was chosen as the university's traditional day.

At the end of the academic year 1958-1959, 219 students of the first cohort graduated and most of them later became key officials in the young higher education system of Vietnam.

In the 1960-1961 academic year, the university enrolled 967 new students for cohort V and welcomed international students to study. It was until this time that scientific research started but it soon achieved encouraging results, remarkably the following events: the establishment of the Science Council (1960); the first university-level scientific conference (1960); student scientific conference (1961)... The research results presented in these scientific conferences became the starting point for later associate's (now doctoral) theses.

In the first stage of development, the University built a number of laboratories for the Faculty of Physics, Faculty of Chemistry, and Faculty of Biology; built a flora and fauna museum, an archaeological museum, a radio-mechanical workshop, a printing house and extended the library...

1.2. From 1965-1975: Continuing to build and develop

Due to historical conditions, from August 1965 to the end of 1968, the university moved its campus to Dai Tu (Bac Thai). After setting up houses and classes, on October 15^th,1965, the opening ceremony of the new academic year took place in the high mountains and thick forest of Viet Bac. Despite the difficulties, the 1965-1966 academic year ended with 75% of the total students achieving good to excellent academic results. Especially, in September 1965, the Government decided to open a high school class under the University of Hanoi to teach gifted students in mathematics (A0 high school class specialized in Maths).

Regarding scientific research, topics related to the reality of social life were deployed in most of the training majors of the University, besides the basic topics: the Faculty of Mathematics solved the problem of crossing rivers for transportation, or flow calculation for irrigation; the Faculty of Physics studied wave transmission for communication. The Faculty of Chemistry studied oil-resistant rubber for national defense and transportation. the Faculty of Biology applied microbiology to sauce production or researched forest vegetables for the military. the Faculty of Geography - Geology deployed the topic: investigation of natural resources of Viet Bac; geological investigation, mineral exploration in the Red River Delta and the Northern coastal areas in service of economic zoning, geographical planning, and local economic development...

At the end of 1968, teachers and students of the University of Hanoi started returning to Hanoi. By the middle of 1970, the whole university had returned to work at the old facilities. However, difficult conditions made them leave the capital again and move to Ung Hoa (former Ha Tay), then to Hiep Hoa (former Ha Bac) and Phu Binh (Bac Thai). At the beginning of 1973, they returned to Hanoi.

In 1974, Mr. Hoang Huu Duong, a lecturer of the Faculty of Mathematics - Mechanics (now Math - Mechanics - Informatics) was the first person to defend his national associate doctoral thesis before the State Thesis Judging Council held at the University of Hanoi. Many international mathematicians highly appreciated the scientific quality of this thesis. The event became a hallmark in the university's postgraduate training.

Also in 1974, Vietnam started sending high school students to participate in the International Math Olympiad, most of whom were students from the A0 math class of the University of Hanoi. Vietnam's first International Math Olympiad Gold medal was given to Hoang Le Minh, a student of the University. This achievement was followed by numerous achievements of later gifted high school classes.

1.3. From 1975 - 1985: Stability and development

From the academic year of 1975 - 1976, the University was assigned the task to become a leading center of training and scientific research in the country.

In 1976, celebrating 20 years of establishment, the University of Hanoi has affirmed its continuous rise in both scale and quality. With its scientific prestige, the University has expanded its cooperation towards many prestigious training institutions in the world: Lomonosov University, Novosibirk (USSR), Humboldt (Germany), Lodz (Poland), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Paris Sud VII (France),... This expansion of international cooperation allowed the University opportunities for exchange and cooperation in research and training with countries with advanced scientific progress.

In the early 80s, teachers and students successfully completed their tasks, students of the high school class specialized in Maths won the highest national and international prizes.

It can be said that, in 10 years (from 1975 to 1985), the University of Hanoi affirmed its pioneering role, being the “avant-garde” in Vietnam's higher education.

1.4. From 1985 - 1995: Innovation and development

In 1987, the University made quite a number of positive changes such as establishing new faculties, offering new subjects and training disciplines in order to meet the needs of society in the renovation period (Informatics, Legal studies...). Scientific research was reoriented so that a number of topics were to serve the three major economic programs of the country and the economic and social issues of the capital of Hanoi then.

In the period from 1988 - 1992, the University advocated the application of scientific and technical advances in accordance with the potential of basic science. Some master research programs were implemented, such as Environment; General survey of central coastal provinces... along with scientific topics focusing on issues serving people's needs (manufacturing sensors, manufacturing rare earth magnets, creating a production line for manufacturing ultrafiltration membranes, etc.) In particular, the university was assigned by the State to research such strategic topics as: “Strategy for training and fostering the young generation”.

During nearly 40 years of construction and development, the University of Hanoi was constantly growing in terms of organizational structure, staff, and facilities. Initially, the university has 3 faculties. By the end of 1993, it had had 15 faculties, 1 department, 3 specialized high schools, 7 function rooms, 14 institutes, research centers, and 11 service units. The 1,236 staff of the university have good moral qualities and high professional qualifications, 791 of whom are teaching staff including 35 doctors of science, 324 associate doctors, 38 professors, 164 associate professors, 188 senior lecturers, 401 lecturers; research staff includes 14 senior researchers and 107 researchers. They all have made great contributions to the country’s high-quality training and scientific research.

On December 10^th,1993, faced with the urgent requirements of national development and extensive international integration in all fields, the Prime Minister decided to establish Vietnam National University - Hanoi, a university of great importance to the country with an aspiration to reach the international level in the future. In September 1995, the University of Hanoi was split into Hanoi University of Sciences and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

2. THE COMING INTO BEING AND DEVELOPMENT OF HANOI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES, VNU (1995 - 2021)

2.1. From 1995-2005: Building a research-oriented Hanoi University of Sciences

After more than two years of reorganizing the structure and developing the new organizational system, Hanoi University of Sciences had asserted itself as a key member of Vietnam National University (Hanoi) in implementing its mission to become a multi-disciplinary and high-quality training center.

During this time, a focus on technology in training and scientific research was paid attention. Training programs on chemical technology, biotechnology, and then on nuclear technology and environmental technology were implemented. Besides basic research, scientists carried out many highly applicable studies.

Continually modernizing equipment and machines for training and scientific research, the university had many investment projects in such fields as petroleum chemistry, materials chemistry, national key laboratories, and environmental analysis... so the facilities supporting scientific research, research quality, and the ability to publish results in prestigious international scientific journals were significantly increased. The number of research topics, the amount of funding obtained from scientific research, the number of published scientific works, the number of international scientific conferences and seminars held at the university increased remarkably every year. This was an important premise for breakthroughs in scientific research in the next stage.

In 1997, Hanoi University of Sciences was the first institution in the country to propose and implement the project of training Talented Bachelor of Science. The training quality of this program has been highly appreciated nationally and internationally, being on par with advanced universities in the world. The success of the program confirmed the unique feature and tradition of Hanoi University of  Sciences: always be pioneering in high-quality training.

2.2. From 2006-2016: Building Hanoi University of Sciences into an advanced research university

This is the period when Hanoi University of Sciences continued to assert itself as the leading university in Vietnam in training scientists in the field of natural sciences with the highest quality of staff nationwide (the number of lecturers with a doctorate or higher degree accounts for 92%; the number of professors and associate professors is nearly 40%).

In addition to the Talented bachelor of science training programs that had been confirmed of their quality, the university also implemented special training projects in order to innovate higher education and improve training quality towards regional and international integration, such as: Advanced Program in Chemistry in partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign, Advanced Program in Mathematics in partnership with the University of Washington, Seattle, and Advanced Program in Environmental Science in partnership with Indiana University (USA). Internationally qualified training programs were implemented with partners who are famous universities of high quality in the world such as bachelor degree in Physics in partnership with Brown University; bachelor degree in Biology in partnership with Tufts University; bachelor degree in Geology in partnership with the University of Illinois at Urbana and Champaign (USA); master and doctoral degrees in Organic Chemistry in partnership with Rennes I University (France).

The cooperation and international integration in training had been promoted with many joint projects in postgraduate training such as training masters and doctorates in cooperation with the University of Greifswald in Germany;   nanoscience and technology in cooperation with the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) of Japan; environmental science and technology in cooperation with the GIST Institute of Korea; waste management and treatment of polluted areas in cooperation with the Technical University of Dresden of Germany; Organic Materials Chemistry in cooperation with the University of Toulon (France); Nuclear Technology and Particle Physics in cooperation with the University of Bordeaux (France); Geography in cooperation with the ITC Institute of the Netherlands; Bachelor's degree in Chemistry in cooperation with and the University of Toulon in France, awarded by the French side...

During this period, 6 training programs were accredited by AUN (ASEAN University Network) standards, including bachelor programs in Chemistry and bachelor program in Geology with the highest scores in Vietnam, second in Southeast Asia. In 2010, the High School for the Gifted was established on the basis of the high school classes for the gifted and continued to be a place where talents in natural sciences were discovered and fostered. The school's students still kept the tradition of quality training through the results of university entrance exams and national and international Olympic competitions.

With the strengths of a leading university in basic sciences, scientific research continued to be improved in both scientific quality and practical value with a view to approaching international standards. Research topics focused mainly on 3 directions: Basic research, which was to catch up with and gradually integrate with the world, application-oriented technology research, practical application research. The results showed that the University was in the top universities nationwide with the highest number of scientific articles published in prestigious international scientific journals. Many of the University staff are policy consultants for the Government in the fields of natural disaster prevention, environmental pollution, climate change, and sustainable development.

2.3 From 2016 - 2021: Promoting tradition, innovating, and integrating into the world

In the period of 2016 - 2021, the University was developing plans and tasks for each academic year according to the strategic plan for the development of Hanoi University of Sciences to 2020, with a vision to 2030 and an adjusted development strategy to 2025, with a vision to 2035. The goal is for the University to become an advanced research university with the quality of training and scientific research in a number of fields on par with advanced universities in the region and in the world.

Since 2018, the University has made a number of training programs with high social demand into high-quality training programs. In particular, in 2019 and 2020, 07 interdisciplinary training programs associated with Industry 4.0 were developed and conducted, taking advantage of the strengths of basic science, but more importantly, remarkably increasing enrollment in terms of both quality and quantity.

The number of publications in the ISI/SCOPUS journals has reached and then exceeded 500 articles/year in 2020, from 300 articles in 2016. The number of intellectual property patents has also increased sharply. In particular, the percentage of articles in Q1, Q2, or in the top 5% of the field also increased sharply.

In 2017, Hanoi University of Sciences was the first university in Southeast Asia to conduct an external assessment and was accredited by AUN-QA standards. By 2021, 16/16 bachelor training programs that were eligible for accreditation have been accredited.

According to the Nature Index ranking, in recent years, the Hanoi University of Sciences has been ranked among the top 5 research institutions in Vietnam, making an important contribution to the ranking of VNU in the world universities rankings such as QS or THE... According to the QS rankings in 2021, the field of Mathematics was ranked in the group of 401 - 450 in the world, No. 1 in Vietnam; The field of Physics and Astronomy were ranked in the group of 501 - 550 in the world, number 1 in Vietnam. According to THE WUR by Subject 2022 ranking, VNU was in the group of 601-800 in the field of natural sciences.

RECTORS/BOARD OF RECTORS IN DIFFERENT PERIODS

1. Rectors of Hanoi University of Sciences in different periods

2. Board of Rectors in different periods