The Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) has over 2,000 staff including over 700 professors, assistant professors or scientists holding doctoral and other high academic degrees in social sciences. However, despite over VND2 trillion (USD90.6 million) in funding from the state budget, the academy had only 22 scientific articles published in international magazines over the last five years.

The numbers were revealed in a recent report on the number of articles by Vietnamese scientists published in international magazines between 2011-2015 by the Institute for Scientific Information.

The numbers revealed each paper cost VND90 billion (USD4 million) to be published.

Perhaps this figure wouldn’t seem so bad if the 22 research papers were of significant quality or of great value to the world, but none of them have made such acclaims.

Meanwhile, many people may be wondering that how much of this USD90.6 million state money has been really been spent on scientific research as only 700 of the 2,000 staff working at the VASS are scientists. And how many of them are real scientists as fake degrees are not difficult to find in Vietnam. Moreover, scientists often have to pay bribes to get their topics approved in the evaluation process.

Therefore, there must be many people in this large academy who are taking advantage of or living off the hard work by some real scientists while doing nothing.

Anyway, USD90.6 million state money for the 22 published articles has surprised the public who have hardly heard any big achievements by local scientists.

A recent report from the Ministry of Science and Technology showed that Vietnam now has approximately 12,000 doctorate degree holders. Yet foreign scientists have been called in to research the recent fish deaths.

It is thought that the country's science and technology sectors can end this wasteful investment and develop better if scientists are hired by the piece.