Institute of Leadership and Public Policy - 10-year journey of building and development

1. Achievements and limitations

Stemming from theoretical and practical requirements, on November 11, 2011, the Center for Leadership and Policy Research - the forerunner of the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy, held the launching ceremony according to Decision No. 3302/QD-HVCT-HCQG (October 26, 2011) of the President of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Administration.

At the time of establishment, the Center had 08 staff members, lecturers, and researchers transferred from the Institute of Politics, the Institute of Sociology, the Institute of Economics, and the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy. Up to now, after 10 years of establishment, the Institute has a total of 26 cadres, civil servants, and public employees, including 01 professor, 04 associate professors, 11 doctorates, 09 masters, and 01 bachelor, including 04 masters are doctoral students at domestic and foreign training institutions.

With the continuous efforts of cadres and employees, in the journey of 10 years, the Institute has made great progress. In general, the teaching staff of the Institute has high professional qualifications, good research, and teaching capacity. Many cadres and lecturers have trained abroad, and have capabilities of using foreign languages in teaching and research. The Institute always fulfills its assigned tasks of training, fostering, and scientific research. Currently, the Institute undertakes 02 subjects in the Advanced Political Theory program of the Academy (Leadership Science and Gender in Leadership and Management); 02 majors in training masters (Master of Public Policy and Master of Leadership); The Institute’s lecturers participate in teaching refresher courses by a title such as the 12th, 13th Central Strategic Resource Officer class, the planning staff training class under the management of the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee in the localities, at the same time, participating in many research projects, many domestic and international seminars. The achieved results have made important imprints, contributed to the training, fostering, and scientific research of the Academy, affirming the correctness of the Party Committee and the Academy’s Board of Directors when deciding to establish the Institute. The outstanding achievements of the Institute are reflected in the following aspects of work:

About curriculum development and teaching

In 2014, immediately after the transformation from the Center to the Institute, the President of the Academy assigned the Institute to be in charge of compiling the Lesson plans on Leadership and Management for the 12th class of strategic resource staff, and at the same time, some lecturers of the Institute have participated in as teaching, assisting in teaching, chairing discussions for these classes.

To serve the task of teaching 02 modules of Leadership Science and Gender in Leadership and Management, the Institute has developed the course, supplemented and updated the Party’s views and policies twice.

The Institute has developed 02 graduate training codes of Public Policy (in 2015) and Leadership (in 2018). Up to now, 17 training classes have been enrolled at the Central Academy, Political Academies of regions and a number of provinces in the country, including, there are 09 classes with 285 graduates.

With master’s degree in Leadership, the Academy has started enrolling students since 2019, as of December 2020, it has enrolled 3 classes (at Central Academy, School for Cadre Development in Ho Chi Minh City and Vinh Phuc province) with 115 students.

Some lecturers of the Institute have participated in teaching training courses for leaders and managers of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic; teaching training courses for resource officers (subject 3) in some provinces, training courses for district secretaries and the equivalent, classes for leaders, departmental managers, bachelor’s and intermediate class of political theory, etc..

In addition, the Institute has also participated in compiling the curriculum outline for bachelor’s degree in political theory, majoring in Religion, Party and state administration building, and intermediate political theory textbook.

About scientific research

Along with training and retraining, the Institute has made great efforts in scientific research on leadership and public policy - new scientific subjects in our country. Following the functions and tasks of the Institute, theoretical and practical issues, in the past 10 years, staff and lecturers of the Institute have chaired and participated in many scientific research projects at all levels, coordinated research cooperation with international organizations; Many topics are highly appreciated, contributing to scientific research, teaching and learning activities of the Academy.

Up to now, the Institute has carried out 15 ministerial-level projects and equivalent, dozens of grassroots-level projects. The staff and lecturers of the Institute have published 240 articles in domestic and international scientific journals; compiled 25 reference books, monographs.

The topics all focus on issues of leadership science and public policy such as: research on leadership style; leadership role; research and evaluate strategies, policies, programs and projects for socio-economic development of the country and locality; researching issues on female leadership and promoting gender equality in leadership and management, etc.. In recent times, under the direction of the Academy’s President, the Institute has actively participated in proposing recommendations policies for formulation of Documents to be submitted to the 13th Party Congress; organized seminars and participated in many articles to fight against false and hostile views.

International cooperation in scientific research is a strength of the Institute. Over the past 10 years, the Institute has organized and participated in many scientific seminars with foreign partners on topics related to academic leadership and public policy such as: “Leadership and policy innovation in the digital era” in collaboration with the Association of Vietnamese Scientists and Experts (AVSE) Global in 2018, Workshop on “Feminist institutionalist approaches to women’s participation in leadership and management in politics and public administration in Vietnam” in collaboration with the Australian Embassy and the University of New South Wales in 2019.

A number of Institute staff actively participate in research on international cooperation with foreign partners as well as providing strategic advice on development policies of provinces and cities. Traditional international partners have many joint activities with the Institute such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), University of New South Wales, Flinders University, Australian Alumni Grant Fund (Aus4skills), Association of Vietnamese Scientists and Experts (AVSE) Global.

From the process of continuous efforts and striving, the team of Institute, staff and lecturers has received noble awards of the Party, State and the Academy such as the title of Excellent Labor Team for 5 consecutive years (2015-2020), Third Class Independence Medal, Certificate of Merit from Academy President, etc.

To achieve these achievements, first of all, is the close and effective direction of the Party Committee, the Academy’s Board of Directors, the support and coordination of the units in the Academy system. Besides, it is the solidarity, efforts and creativity of generations of staff and lecturers of the Institute to overcome difficulties and challenges from the early days of the Center’s establishment with a completely new field of research.

Besides the results that the Institute has achieved, a number of limitations also need to be pointed out to overcome in order to develop stronger in the coming years.

The objective of making the Institute become the leading Center of Vietnam and international integration in research and training in Leadership has not been realized. Although initially the Institute has identified the basic contents of the Leadership Science subject (Advanced Political Theory), of the graduate training program in Leadership, Public Policy at the Academy, there are still many issues that needs to be clarified and deepened in order to form a leadership discipline suitable to Vietnam’s political institutions and Vietnamese culture.

Scientific research still lacks influential research results; The number of articles published in domestic and foreign journals is not much.

The Institute has not yet organized training courses to meet the society’s demand for leadership and management skills.

2. Vision and development orientation

Firstly, the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy determines the development direction for 2021-2025: Striving to make the Institute become one of the leading units in research, training and fostering of leadership; Continuing to unite, unify, and look after the bond within the unit; Improving the quality of research and training majoring in Leadership and Public Policy in the Academy and the whole country; Enhancing the initiative for professional groups in professional activities and supervising the quality improvement of teaching and scientific research; Continuing to implement Directive No. 05-CT/TW dated May 15, 2016 of the Politburo on continuing to promote learning and following Ho Chi Minh’s thought, morality and style.

In order to accomplish the above-mentioned objectives, first of all, the team of leaders and lecturers of the Institute make the best efforts to thoroughly grasp and fully and consistently implement the training and scientific research with the urgent and long-term tasks are identified in the Resolution of the Academy Party Congress for the term of 2021-2025, the Resolution of the 13th Party Congress; Proactively and creatively mastering and applying Resolution No. 32-NQ/TW dated May 26, 2014 of the 11th Politburo on “Continuing innovating and improving the quality of theoretical training and fostering politics for leaders and managers”.

Secondly, developing a contingent of cadres and lecturers of the Institute who are dynamic, have sufficient scientific capacity, political courage, and are sensitive to changes in social life. Striving to 2030, 80% of staff in the Institute have doctorate degrees. Focusing on building a number of leading experts, research groups with prestige in scientific research, professional ethics, good political qualities, and the ability to conduct and participate in major domestic and foreign studies. Continuing on-the-job training and sending staff to participate in master’s and doctoral training programs, regularly providing short-term professional training at home and abroad; focusing on fostering young scientific staff, combined with additional teaching and research staff with practical experience in leadership and policy.

Thirdly, promoting innovation, building and completing curriculum and lesson plans, using active teaching methods oriented towards the Academy as well as the general innovation trend of the country and the world, strengthening research, building situations for classroom teaching; regularly updating theoretical and practical issues at home and abroad in topics on leadership science, public policy, gender equality for training and fostering systems of the Academy; and becoming a quality and prestigious address for training and teaching leadership science and public policy in the country.

Fourthly, continuing to promote the direction of research and policy recommendations, contributing to providing scientific arguments for the formulation of the Party’s guidelines and directions, the State’s policies and laws, and policy advice at the local level for provinces and cities; linking research, teaching, leadership, public policy, gender equality with the struggle to protect the ideological foundation of the Party and the socialist regime; strengthening the publication of works in domestic and international specialized journals; collaborating with domestic and international scientists and research units in consulting and conducting in-depth studies on leadership science, public policy and gender equality.

Fifthly, continuing to deploy and expand international cooperation activities in training, fostering and academic exchange, cooperation in research on scientific topics, domestic and foreign seminars.

Sixthly, proposing arguments to open the code of doctoral training majors in public policy, and at the same time, completing the procedures to launch the Journal of Leadership and Public Policy, in order to contribute to enhancing the prestige of science of the Institute.

Looking back on the 10-year journey, generations of staff of the Institute have been dedicated, enthusiastic and creative, constantly cultivating the proud development of the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy, successfully fulfilling their tasks assigned by the Party, State and Academy, contributing to the overall development of the Senior Party School. In the upcoming journey, from the sense of responsibility, from the solid foundation that previous generations have taken great pains to create, the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy will continue to build and develop in order to meet the needs of the present political tasks and create the future.

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References:

1. Decision No. 3302/QD-HVCT-HCQG dated October 02, 2011 of the President of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Administration on the establishment of the Center for Leadership and Policy Research.

2. Decision No. 539/QD-HVCTQG dated February 18, 2014 of the Academy’s President on the establishment of the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy.

3. Decision No. 6582-QD/HVCTQG dated November 01, 2018 of the Academy’s President on the functions and tasks of the Institute of Leadership and Public Policy.

ASSOC. PROF., Dr. LE VAN CHIEN

Institute of Leadership and Public Policy,

Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics