The project was unsuccessful… but it made a contribution.

(NLDO) - Responding to questions, the Director of the Department of Science and Technology of Thanh Hoa said that the nature of science is to find new things, it is uncertain, it can be successful, it can fail, but even if it is not successful, it still contributes to help scientists avoid making the same mistake.

On the afternoon of July 9, within the framework of the 20th Session, the 18th Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Council continued to work, conduct questions and answers.

Giám đốc Sở KH-CN Thanh Hóa: — Mr. Tran Duy Binh, Director of the Department of Science and Technology of Thanh Hoa province, answered questions.

At the questioning session, Mr. Tran Duy Binh, Director of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) of Thanh Hoa province, said that with the functions and tasks of the Department, in addition to carrying out the transition of tasks from previous years, in the period of 2020-2023, the Department of Science and Technology of Thanh Hoa province advised the Provincial People's Committee to deploy 179 new tasks.

In 3 years, 130 provincial-level tasks were accepted, of which 104 tasks were transferred before 2020, and 26 tasks were transferred from 2020-2023.

According to Mr. Binh, many tasks after acceptance have been applied in practice, bringing high economic efficiency, contributing to the development of socio-economic tasks of the province.

Mr. Binh also admitted that during the implementation process, 11 tasks were not achieved and had to be stopped to recover money for the state, some tasks were extended and 2 tasks were not achieved upon acceptance. In addition to objective factors, Mr. Binh also said that the facilities and equipment serving science are still lacking and outdated.

"The nature of science is to find something new, uncertain, may be successful, may not be successful, not aiming for profit from the beginning but must go through many steps. In which, the testing step often has the highest risk. Therefore, unsuccessful research topics and projects and applications are also a contribution, to clarify the direction for the community and also to avoid future scientists from continuing to conduct duplicate research" - Mr. Binh said.

Many delegates asked the Director of the Department of Science and Technology to clarify the scientific projects that the Department is implementing, including projects that are slow and prolonged, projects that are unsuccessful, and projects that have been accepted but have low practical application efficiency.

Delegate Trinh Thi Hoa (Thanh Hoa City Delegation) asked about the fact that in 2022 and 2023, the Department of Science and Technology was assigned by the Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee to deploy a task of 60 billion VND each year, but the implementation rate was low (29.4 billion VND in 2022; 28.4 billion VND in 2023). What is the reason?

Delegate Nguyen Tuan Tuong (Delegation of Ba Thuoc district) pointed out that out of 179 topics implemented by the Department of Science and Technology, nearly half were topics transferred from the Central Government or other localities, and there were no specific strategic topics for the province.

Answering questions from delegates, Mr. Tran Duy Binh said that there are many topics, but the quality, novelty, urgency, and progress are not high, and there are many overlaps. "There are topics proposed from year to year, but the feasibility is not high. While there are many proposals, local departments, branches, and units do not choose them, and the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many difficulties, leading to slow acceptance of topics, not meeting the requirements set out" - Mr. Binh said.

According to the Director of the Department of Science and Technology, the criteria for selecting topics must not be duplicated, so there are a few topics that have some overlap. Therefore, in the appraisal process, conditions are also created for inheritance and budget reduction. "The name may not be duplicated, but the content inside must be improved to effectively apply it to the province. Transferring copyrighted content to outsiders will be very difficult. So there are things we must transfer, master, imitate and manufacture" - Mr. Binh frankly said.

Explaining further on this issue, Mr. Le Duc Giang, Vice Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, said that besides the achieved results, the science and technology sector still has some shortcomings and limitations.

According to Mr. Giang, Thanh Hoa currently has a very large number of intellectuals with 236,000 people, including 38 associate professors, 500 doctors, 2,500 masters, but the number of intellectuals directly participating in research applied to technology is not much. Second, the number of science and technology enterprises developing is not commensurate with the potential when we have 38,000 enterprises registered to operate, but only 32 enterprises are recognized as science and technology.

In addition, scientific task proposals are still uneven across fields. Many sectors and localities have not proposed any scientific and technological tasks for many years.

To overcome the shortcomings, Mr. Le Duc Giang said that the science and technology sector needs to eliminate the administrative mindset in science and technology activities, shifting from rigid mechanical management mindset to mindset of serving businesses, units and scientists. Develop, amend and supplement regulations on determining the task of approving funding, reducing administrative procedures, reducing waste of time and effort of scientists... Timely honor and reward organizations and individuals who preside over science and technology tasks with high efficiency, contributing to the socio-economic development of the province.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/giam-doc-so-kh-cn-thanh-hoa-de-tai-khong-thanh-cong-nhung-cung-co-dong-gop-196240709190302856.htm