After more than 1 year and 6 months of implementing Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo on breakthroughs in science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation, many bottlenecks in mechanisms and resources have been gradually removed. However, according to the Ministry of Science and Technology, the current challenge is no longer mainly in perfecting mechanisms and policies but in organizing implementation to put policies into practice.
According to the Ministry Office (Office 57) under the Ministry of Science and Technology, the new legal document has basically been issued, creating a basis for implementing the mechanisms of the Resolution. The budget for science, technology, innovation and digital transformation in 2026 is expected to reach about 95,000 billion VND, equivalent to about 3% of the total state budget expenditure. This shows that political determination has been concretized by practical resources.
However, the Ministry of Science and Technology believes that resources will only be effective when they are well organized and implemented. Through monitoring the situation of planning and disbursement, the Ministry identified three groups of obstacles that need to be focused on removing.
Firstly, in some ministries, branches and localities, there is still a psychology of hesitation, fear of mistakes, and avoidance of responsibility when implementing new mechanisms. Waiting for guidance or slow decision-making makes the progress of task approval, fund allocation and implementation organization prolonged.
Second, the quality of task preparation is not uniform. Many proposals have not clearly defined goals, output products, socio-economic efficiency and funding needs, leading to many adjustments during the appraisal process, affecting the progress of budget allocation and disbursement.
Third, the capacity to organize implementation in some ministries, sectors and localities has not kept up with the requirements of large-scale science, technology and digital transformation programs. Although resources are allocated, capital absorption capacity is still limited.
To remove these bottlenecks, the Ministry of Science and Technology has advised the Prime Minister to issue Directive No. 29/CT-TTg. According to the Ministry, the core point of the Directive is not to add more mechanisms but to tighten discipline in organization and implementation. The Directive requires reviewing the entire list of tasks, accelerating allocation and disbursement, definitively handling slow-deployment tasks, and at the same time linking the responsibility of the head with the implementation results, overcoming the situation of avoidance and shirking responsibility.
From now until the end of 2026, the Ministry of Science and Technology identifies the focus as effectively implementing the policies that have been promulgated, putting the mechanisms of Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW into practice and creating measurable results.
Accordingly, the Ministry will focus on three groups of solutions. First of all, continue to improve guidelines to immediately remove obstacles in the implementation process. At the same time, innovate the method of building budget estimates according to output results and capital utilization efficiency instead of spreading out. Along with that, strengthen monitoring and evaluation of progress to promptly transfer resources from slow-deploying tasks to tasks with better implementation capabilities.
The Ministry of Science and Technology emphasized that the measure of the implementation of Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW is not how much funding has been allocated, but how many new technologies have been created, how many businesses are supported in innovation, how many digital platforms are put into operation and how they contribute to economic growth.
To achieve that goal, the important thing now is to shift from the thinking of "following the correct procedure" to the thinking of "being responsible for the results", and at the same time thoroughly overcome the psychology of hesitation and avoidance of responsibility in the process of organization and implementation.
