Hieu is well known as the youngest scientist to receive the title of professorship, in 2015, and the youngest professor in physics in Vietnam. The vice rector of Phenikaa University, born in 1972, was recently honored as one of the Vietnamese scientists with highest numbers of citations.

Nguyen Van Hieu

Hieu told reporters that he had a difficult time in the first years after returning to Vietnam when he had to both work as university lecturer and take extra jobs to earn extra money. Only since 2009, when Nafosted (National Foundation for Science and Technology Development) emerged, did he begin to live on scientific research.

“I had to build the lab from scratch,” he said, recalling the difficult time in the past.

One day, a South Korean professor came to visit Hieu. He was surprised to see the Vietnamese scientist, who was then associate professor, wearing shorts and building experimental equipment.

After returning to South Korea, the professor bought an experimental system and sent it to Hieu as a gift. This was the first time Hieu and his team had such modern equipment.

Nguyen Van Hieu is well known as the youngest scientist to receive the title of professorship, in 2015, and the youngest professor in physics in Vietnam.

It was a difficult period for Hieu, but he had an interesting experience. “I sent articles to scientific journals and then waited for critical results, and sometimes it took 3-4 months and I burst into joy when receiving the reply that my articles will be published in the prestigious journals,” Hieu said.

Many people have asked Hieu why he continues writing articles though he has had over 130 articles published. Hieu said simply that it makes him happy. He never sets goals about the number of articles he has to write. He simply makes every effort to write high-quality articles.

High-quality articles, for Hieu, means articles that are 100 percent made in Vietnam, articles with no name of any foreign professor, and published in the most prestigious journals in the world.

If famous foreign professors’ names appear in articles, the articles will more easily catch attention and obtain high rankings. However, this doesn’t affirm the scientific research stature of Vietnam, he said.

In 2016, Hieu received the Ta Quang Buu Award. He is the author and co-author of more than 130 scientific research articles published in ISI/Scopus journal. Of these, 36 articles have had more than 36 citations (h-index = 36). 

Le Huyen

International ranking of Vietnamese universities in publications

In 2018, research institutes and education establishments in Vietnam had published 6,707 scientific research works on ISI journals, according to Web of Science (WoS).