Supporting University-Business Collaboration in Vietnam

​The latest activities in the ongoing ICTEDU project focused on supporting the development of university-business collaboration (UBC) in Vietnamese universities. Together with the project partners, the Hanoi University of Science and Technology and the College of Information Technology at the University of Danang, the Development Services arranged two seminars in Vietnam in May.

The aim of the seminars held at the partner universities was to equip them with the right tools for fostering UBC and engaging in deeper collaboration with companies.
The seminars were attended by representatives from the host universities, business representatives from large companies and SMEs operating in the field of ICT, and representatives from public organisations.

‒ This event was very important to Hanoi University of Science and Technology. It aimed at providing information on the measurement of the collaboration between the university and the enterprises through innovation programme training, providing knowledge, and supporting students to work in an innovative environment and be creative in business, says Vice-President of the Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Prof. Pham Hoang Luong.

Currently, the partner universities and companies are mainly collaborating through internships and the recruitment of graduates. The universities aim at increasing the ways of collaboration. In the seminars, the UTU team provided new ideas on-sight.

The partner universities find collaborating with the University of Turku significant.

‒ Thanks to the conference, we have been sharing many experiences from the academia and industry collaboration model of the University of Turku. In addition, we have had the opportunity to exchange opinions and form a great deal of relationships with many businesses, says Huynh Cong Phap, Vice Rector of the College of Information Technology at the University of Danang.

According to Huynh Cong Phap, also the enterprises learned a great deal about the needs of the education organisations and the essence and significance of the cooperation.

‒ In the future, we look forward to many collaboration and co-training programmes as well as potential projects with a variety of international and domestic companies and universities.

The next steps of the project include piloting a new entrepreneurship course involving companies as well as supporting the partners to facilitate technology transfer.

Counsellor Tomi Särkioja from the Embassy of Finland in Hanoi attended the seminar.


Project Manager Kaapo Seppälä spoke about the value university-business collaboration brings to both parties.

‒ First, the businesses will gain direct business benefits by accessing the University research skills and facilities through consultative and collaborative research. Secondly, by participating in University projects involving students, the businesses help students to develop more practical skills and make them more compatible as future employees. Close collaboration with a University is inexpensive and attractive to companies of all sizes.

Text and photographs: Céline Charpentron