Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat paid a visit to France from July 7-14 to foster the ministry's cooperation with French partners.

During his stay, Minister Dat held talks with the French Minister of Higher Education and Research (MESR), and visited a number of agencies and organisations in the innovation system of France, including the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) Grenoble Center, innovation valley (Inovallée), and Airbus Defence and Space.

In the meetings, Vietnam and France agreed on many important issues, including seeking cooperation mechanisms suitable to the new context through the upgrading of the agreement on science-technology cooperation signed between the two Governments in 2007, a number of collaboration deals in training, scientific researching, innovation, technology transfer, and high technology investment, as well as a number of specific measures to make Vietnam-France partnership on science and technology more substantial in the future in some new areas such as aerospace, green technology and new energy.

On July 8, the minister attended the opening of the International Year of Basic Science for Sustainable Development organised by UNESCO, and chaired a high-level seminar on the role of science in policymaking.

The Vietnamese official shared lessons that Vietnam drew from changes in the relations between science and policymaking due to COVID-19, and underlined the need to strongly change mindset in science-technology management, encourage experiments, promote open science and open innovation spirit.

He proposed the formation of platforms for sharing patent information, data, scientific publications and research means to help less developed countries access and keep up with the development trend of the world science and technology sector.

The minister also underlined the need of of choosing priorities and balancing economic growth with ensuring safety and security for the people, in which, it is necessary to put people and people at the centre of all development policies.

Working with Daren Tang, General Director of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and delivered a speech at the 63rd Series of Meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO, Dat said that Vietnam is ready to join hands in implementing common initiatives of WIPO in supporting post-pandemic recovery, creating favourable conditions for all parties in the intellectual property and innovation ecosystem, especially small and innovative start-ups, and encouraging the participation of women and youngsters. Vietnam is committed to continuing to be an active, proactive and responsible member of WIPO, for the development of an inclusive, balanced, dynamic and forward-looking global intellectual property ecosystem, contributing to enriching the knowledge and cultural treasures of mankind, promoting economic growth and sustainable development, he stated.

He thanked WIPO for supporting Vietnam in effectively implementing cooperation projects and programmes to improve the capacity of the intellectual property system. The minister suggested that in the coming time, WIPO continue to assist Vietnam in realising the National Intellectual Property Strategy and the revised Law on Intellectual Property; forming and promoting a culture of intellectual property in society; strengthening cooperation activities in training in the field of intellectual property through the project of the Institute of Intellectual Property Training in Vietnam, and implementing projects to support enterprises in innovation, technology transfer, development and protection of intellectual property in order to improve resilience, adaptability, competitiveness and growth of enterprises.

He revealed that his ministry is developing a set of indicators to measure local innovation capacity called Potential Innovation Index (PII). He suggested WIPO continue to provide technical support for Vietnam, especially on the methodology for testing the index framework, data analysis and processing, to enable it to publish the first report on local-level innovation activities by the end of 2022.

On the occasion, the minister witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding on cooperation between the National Office of Intellectual Property and WIPO on implementing the National Intellectual Property Strategy, and the extension of a cooperation agreement between the office and the UK Intellectual Property Office./.