Gradually forming scientific habits for businesses

On the afternoon of July 19, the Provincial People's Council questioned the Director of the Department of Science and Technology on the effectiveness of applying the results of scientific research projects in real social life; applying science and technology to promote labor productivity and applying high technology to serve socio-economic development in the province. What are the current situation, causes, responsibilities and solutions in the coming time?

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong chaired the question-and-answer session on science and technology. Photo: Thanh Cuong

How many science and technology topics are effectively applied?

This is the opinion of many delegates questioning the head of the Department of Science and Technology. Delegate Hoang Thanh Binh, Vinh City unit, said that in recent years, the reality of scientific research topics is many but the topics applied to practice are very modest, while the funding for the topics is not small. So what is the solution to overcome this problem? More specifically, delegate Tran Duy Ngoan, Hoang Mai unit, requested to clarify the effectiveness of applying science and technology in the agricultural sector?

Responding to these issues, Director of the Department of Science and Technology Tran Quoc Thanh said that the application of technical fields alone is 80-85% effective. However, if calculated as a whole, the rate of effective application topics ranges from 70-75%.

Mr. Thanh also shared that there are some fields that are very difficult to evaluate, such as social sciences and humanities. The reason is that the nature of science inherently has a delay when implementing into practice, especially in the field of social sciences and humanities, the delay is even higher because it is related to providing data, proposing advice that changes need time, or like in the medical field for epidemiological research...

Delegate Nguyen Thi Lan raised a question. Photo: Thanh Cuong

In addition, with the question about the effectiveness of applying science and technology in the agricultural sector, the Director of the Department of Science and Technology said that out of 41 projects implemented in the agricultural sector in the past 3 years, the evaluation survey showed that only 3 models were ineffective. The rest were implemented quite well by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the People's Committees of the districts.

Mr. Thanh affirmed that the science sector does not have the funds to replicate the applied topics, but only has the funds to implement the initial tasks, and the replication comes from the budget of departments, branches, and districts. Therefore, every year there is a handover and assignment of responsibility to districts, departments, and branches to continue replicating the models.

Delegates also focused on clarifying the role of the Department of Science and Technology in providing advice on the field of science and technology. “What innovations has the Department made in placing annual orders for science and technology tasks?” - delegate Nguyen Thi Lan, Do Luong unit asked.

Regarding this issue, the Director of the Department of Science and Technology said that departments, branches, and localities place orders for science and technology tasks to the Department of Science and Technology, not the department.

Minister of Science and Technology Chu Ngoc Anh and provincial leaders listened to the introduction of the invention of Mr. Phan Cong Sy, Hung Nguyen. Photo: Thanh Le

However, related to this issue, Mr. Tran Quoc Thanh also admitted that there is a difference in the sectors and fields that place orders every year. In 2016, 2017, 2018, there were 91 topics and projects implemented in the whole province, of which 41 were in agriculture, 23 in social sciences and humanities, 17 in medical sciences, and 10 in engineering and technology.

“Transportation, construction, and industry have the fewest ordered topics, while agriculture has the most, which is in line with the province’s priorities. We are focusing on agriculture,” Mr. Thanh cited.

Promoting socialization of science and technology activities

The Director of the Department of Science and Technology repeatedly mentioned the issue to the Provincial People's Council delegates, emphasizing the role of enterprises. He said that enterprises are extremely important links in building chains, especially in the agricultural sector. Enterprises participate in research to deeply process products, as well as find markets for products.

However, according to Director of the Department of Science and Technology Tran Quoc Thanh, attracting businesses to invest and participate is also facing difficulties, especially in the agricultural sector when there are too few businesses investing in this field. "There are projects that this department has had to "hang up" for 3 years without any businesses participating, such as deep processing of turmeric starch products" - Mr. Thanh cited.

Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Xuan Dai asked a question to the Director of the Department of Science and Technology. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Regarding the issue of encouraging and attracting enterprises to research science and technology, Standing Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Xuan Dai - Nghia Dan unit requested the Science and Technology sector to provide solutions to encourage, influence and stimulate enterprises to invest in science and technology in production and business in the coming time.

Responding to this issue, the Director of the Department of Science and Technology said that this is an issue that our country in general and the province in particular are very concerned about and is also an extremely important issue to promote business development.

Therefore, to promote businesses in this issue, the Department of Science and Technology has worked with a number of large businesses in the area and has had an impact and through these businesses to gradually form the habit of doing science for the business community.

Noting that currently, a number of large enterprises in the province have established institutes and research centers, the Director of the Department of Science and Technology shared solutions to stimulate enterprises to invest in research: "We support a number of projects assigned to units under these units to preside over and implement", and through that, enterprises have also allocated many times more funding to invest in the projects.

Director of the Department of Science and Technology Tran Quoc Thanh answered questions from the Provincial People's Council delegates. Photo: Thanh Cuong

However, the above solution is mainly implemented in a number of large, potential enterprises, while the majority of enterprises in the province are small and medium-sized, so promoting enterprises to invest in science and technology is still a problem.

Specifically, according to regulations, enterprises are allowed to allocate 10% of pre-tax profits to the enterprise's science and technology development fund. However, if each small and medium enterprise stands alone in this issue, the science and technology development fund will not be enough to meet the demand.

To resolve the issue, Mr. Tran Quoc Thanh said he has worked with the association of businesses to implement the idea of ​​forming a science and technology development fund according to the association.

Also at the question and answer session, the leaders of the Department of Science and Technology of the province answered questions related to the field of science and technology raised by the delegates.

Concluding this content, after acknowledging and pointing out the limitations of the field of science and technology, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Hoang Viet Duong recommended that the Provincial People's Committee should strengthen and innovate the direction of the task of developing plans and orders for scientific research topics, that is, clearly identifying the supply and demand sources for the requirements of scientific topics. The goal is to have a list of scientific research topics at each time that is suitable for the essential points of each field and socio-economic sector.

The Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council also recommended that the list of topics to be implemented must be specialized and have the ability to forecast so that when completed, they can be applied effectively in practice; at the same time, innovate and further enhance the responsibility of the scientific topic acceptance council, ensuring the work of appraisal, evaluation and acceptance of topics is serious, objective and of high quality; research and implement well the policy of linking to create social motivation for enterprises in the field of science and technology; strengthen the synchronous coordination between departments, branches, levels, enterprises and people to carry out the task of developing and applying science and technology topics...