Social Sciences and Humanities are the foundation for sustainable development

Photo caption — Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long. Photo: VNA

General Secretary To Lam, President Luong Cuong, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man sent flower baskets to congratulate the school.

Attending the ceremony were Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son and representatives of several ministries, central agencies, Hanoi city, provinces and cities; generations of leaders, staff, lecturers and students of the school.

Birthplace of many Social Sciences and Humanities

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long affirmed: The University of Social Sciences and Humanities is a university with a long history, the birthplace of many of the first modern social sciences and humanities majors in Vietnam.

80 years ago, just a few days after the victory of the August Revolution in 1945, the Faculty of Letters - the predecessor of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi was born. During 80 years of formation and development, with different names, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities has gone through a special historical journey, closely associated with the historical stages of the nation.

On behalf of the Government and Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long commended and congratulated the achievements of generations of teachers, students and pupils of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, making practical contributions to the cause of national development.

The school has played a key role in Vietnamese language work for overseas Vietnamese; compiled and built the Vietnamese language teaching program framework and the Vietnamese language teaching channel for overseas Vietnamese. Along with that, it has formed the oldest national educational brand in training human resources for basic sciences in the fields of social sciences and humanities such as Han Nom, Religious Studies, Anthropology, History, Culture, and Archaeology.

Currently, the school has 28 undergraduate training programs, 36 Master's training programs and 32 Doctoral training programs, affirming its pioneering role in building the first training programs, many levels from Master's to Doctorate, training high-quality human resources for the country.

Scientific research work has always been given attention with many scientific works being awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize and the State Prize; many national-level research topics have been applied in formulating guidelines and policies of the Party and State.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasized: In the new development stage of the country, the Social Sciences and Humanities are identified as the foundation for sustainable development, meeting the requirements of building, developing the country and protecting the Fatherland. Without strong basic science, there can be no breakthrough applied science, and even less can there be an independent and sustainable development strategy. Therefore, the school needs to continue to be at the forefront of basic science research and training, contributing to preserving and developing fundamental cultural values, while opening up new approaches in training, research and policy consulting.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the school to continue to strongly innovate its training and fostering model, linking basic science and applied science; develop specialized, interdisciplinary, regular and short-term programs; promote high-quality scientific research, especially works with theoretical and practical values that directly serve the process of formulating guidelines and policies of the Party and the State. At the same time, proactively participate in strategic consulting in the fields of culture, society, education, communication, social governance, and people's diplomacy, contributing to firmly protecting the Party's ideological foundation and orienting public opinion.

Schools need to actively participate in building and implementing the Central Committee's resolutions on culture and education; fostering the national value system, family value system and Vietnamese human value system; contributing to making culture truly become an endogenous strength, a driving force for sustainable development of the country.

Schools also need to continue to promote their pioneering role in humanistic digital transformation. Digital transformation is not just about applying technology, but also needs to become a transformation in the way of thinking, living, working, and communicating on digital platforms - towards "digital humanity", "digital culture", "responsible digital citizens", contributing to the building of a national open knowledge ecosystem.

In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the School proactively integrate internationally to become a prestigious address in global academic cooperation, on the principle of maintaining its identity, proactively absorbing the quintessence of humanity and enriching and spreading Vietnamese intelligence to the world.

On behalf of the Party and State leaders, Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long awarded the First Class Labor Medal to the University of Social Sciences and Humanities for its outstanding achievements in human resource training and scientific research, contributing to the cause of building socialism and defending the Fatherland.

Knowledge fulcrum in human development, preserving national culture

Sharing at the ceremony, Director of Hanoi National University Hoang Minh Son emphasized: In the development strategy of Hanoi National University in the new period, the task of gathering and nurturing talents; training the elite of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities is one of the four core tasks throughout. The school is an important knowledge fulcrum for the human development strategy, preserving national cultural values and affirming its role as a center of culture, knowledge, science, technology, and innovation of the capital and the country.

The Director of Hanoi National University proposed that the Government, ministries, departments and branches pay more attention to investing in the field of social sciences and humanities, considering this a core pillar in the development of modern Vietnamese people. At the same time, allow Hanoi National University and the University of Social Sciences and Humanities to pilot special mechanisms, outstanding autonomy, creating conditions for developing a large team of scholars, attracting talents, promoting strategic research and implementing comprehensive autonomy. This is to help Hanoi National University achieve the goal of entering the top 100 universities in Asia by 2030 and having key fields reach the Top 100 in the world.

In addition, the Government, ministries and sectors have increased their orders to the University of Social Sciences and Humanities for policy consulting tasks, especially in key areas such as culture, education, society, communication and sustainable development. There are policies to support the development of modern and synchronous research facilities and infrastructure, creating favorable conditions to basically complete the Hanoi National University Urban Area in Hoa Lac, turning this place into a green, smart, livable national science and innovation city.

Hanoi National University commits to always be close, closely accompany, create the most favorable conditions for the school to develop strongly, comprehensively and sustainably, continue to innovate, firmly integrate and contribute increasingly deeply to the development of Hanoi National University and the country.

In his commemorative speech, Professor, Dr. Hoang Anh Tuan, Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, said: The school is preparing to issue a Development Strategy to 2035 - vision 2045, focusing on 5 key tasks. Specifically, promoting restructuring of the organizational apparatus towards streamlining, perfecting modern digital university governance, promoting internationalization of training and research activities... to turn the school into an elite, advanced research university center, serving society, building the nation, by 2030, some training fields will be ranked in the top 150 continents.

There are breakthroughs in developing staff, attracting talent, and training excellent leading experts; at the same time, strongly adjusting the planning and developing the training program structure towards multi-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, cross-field, internationalization, basic science as the foundation for applied science...

The school will continue to promote international publications in harmony with national publications, implement key and long-term scientific programs with clusters of excellent scientific products, continue to aim for prestigious national and international scientific awards, top policy advice for the Central and local levels; build a financial strategy suitable for university autonomy; harmoniously develop the inner city space and Hoa Lac campus to expand development space.