Vietnam continues to rise in global innovation index

To achieve that result, in recent years Vietnam has implemented a series of practical and effective actions to promote innovation.

Continuously promoted

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has just released the Global Innovation Index 2024 (GII) Report in 2024. Accordingly, Vietnam is ranked 44/133 countries and economies, up 2 places compared to 2023. In the ASEAN region, Vietnam ranks 4th (after Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand).

To achieve the above results, in recent years, Vietnam has taken many practical and effective actions to promote innovation such as: Building priority policy mechanisms to promote innovation and entrepreneurship; building development strategies and programs, focusing on digital economy, green economy, circular economy, sharing economy, knowledge economy, industries that bring high added value such as big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, semiconductor chips...

The Ministry of Science and Technology's announcement assessed that for 14 consecutive years, Vietnam has always had higher innovation results than its development level, showing its efficiency in converting input resources into innovation outputs. Vietnam's pillar scores are higher than those of countries in the lower-middle-income group, and even higher than those in the upper-middle-income group, except for pillar 2 on human resources and research.

However, in addition to the achieved results, in practice, innovation and creative startups still face many difficulties, obstacles, and lack of synchronization and unity in understanding as well as in implementing policies and laws.

According to Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Hoang Minh, to promote the development of Vietnam's creative startup ecosystem, it is necessary to quickly build and perfect the legal corridor, create unity and synchronization in building, amending and supplementing mechanisms, policies, and allocating resources to promote innovation and creative startups.

"Incubating" creative startups

Currently, Vietnam is estimated to have nearly 4,000 innovative startups, including unicorns valued at over 1 billion USD, many valued at over 100 million USD.

In particular, the establishment of the National Innovation Center (NIC) demonstrates the Government's determination to make innovation one of Vietnam's growth drivers in the new era.

After 5 years of operation, NIC has become a national hub for innovation, the nucleus for the development of Vietnam's innovation ecosystem, aiming to become the leading Innovation Center in the region, contributing to promoting fundamental transformation of Vietnam's economic future, bringing the country to rapid and sustainable development stages.

Speaking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Mr. Vu Quoc Huy - Director of the National Innovation Center (NIC) - said that in recent times, NIC has not only provided working space but also created a favorable environment for startups to operate. For example, training and organizing events to connect startups with major partners such as Google, Beta, etc. Although no startup has become a "unicorn", the programs have also brought good results in helping startups access resources, knowledge and cooperation opportunities. NIC will have specific criteria for selecting supported startups, focusing on the capacity of the team, management ability and uniqueness of the idea.

In addition, the center also organizes cooperation programs with international universities, such as sending startup groups abroad to attend training courses, which helps startups access international experience and knowledge. In the coming time, NIC will continue to make efforts to improve the quality and contribution of experts in supporting and developing startups.

"Regarding the semiconductor industry, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung assigned NIC to submit the first report to the Prime Minister regarding breakthrough areas that will promote Vietnam's socio-economic development in the coming period. In particular, NIC proposed two areas: semiconductor and hydrogen. From that report, the Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Planning and Investment to develop and implement programs to promote and attract investment in Vietnam's semiconductor industry.

Therefore, we have identified training human resources for the semiconductor industry as an important task. Vietnam has many strengths in human resources, especially engineers, lecturers and graduates. However, to meet development needs, Vietnam needs to improve the quality of training and attract high-quality human resources. Recently, NIC has also been coordinating with universities to organize short-term training courses for lecturers, students and engineers related to semiconductors" - Mr. Vu Quoc Huy said.