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Файл:Теория и практика академического сотрудничества региональных вузов Вьетнама и России. Монография
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Fig. 5. University partnership network before the model
implementation (2012). Visualization using the Networking Model
methodology.
Fig. 5 shows that this Russian university was at Level 1 of
internationalization with Vietnam before the model implementation.
Contacts with universities were not systematic and joint projects existed
only as plans and intentions. No Vietnamese business was in this network.
The only higher level academic project was student mobility, traditional for
Russia-Vietnam cooperation.
According to the model, the following internationalization tasks were
determined:
Expand the partnership network by including industrial companies
and administrative authorities in both countries;
Establish a remote office in Vietnam;
Upgrade from Level 1 to Level 2 activities with existing partners.
The model implementation started in 2013. Negotiations on
establishing a remote office in a Vietnamese university were initiated and
the remote office was opened in 2014.
Fig. 6 shows the new network in 3years after the start of the model
implementation.
It is very important that the remote office established many
individual links with Vietnamese universities and administrative bodies and
expended the network. Another important result is the inclusion of business
into the network (Petro Vietnam and Petrochemical Cluster).
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Fig. 6. University partnership network after 3 years of the model
implementation (2016). Visualization using the Networking Model
methodology.
Many links are now formed by Level 2 activities, such as:
joint international conferences with partner universities in
Vietnam;
international grants with Vietnamese partners;
joint research publications in local journals;
academic exhibitions;
lectures of faculty.
The only Level 1 links (marked red) are the activities carried out with
industrial companies.
Thus, we can conclude that implementation of the Model increased
the level of university internationalization and now it is mostly Level 2.
For more reliable and impartial assessment of internationalization
progress, a statistical analysis was carried out for the Russian university
implemented the Networking model. The results are summarized in Table
8.
122
Table 8. The Russian university progress in cooperation with
Statistical Indicator
Before
Model
Implement
ation
(2012)
Model
Implem
entation
(2013)
Model
Implem
entation
(2014)
Model
Implem
entation
(2015)
Vietnamese Students, total
46
49
56
62
Vietnamese Students, pre-
university college
14
14
16
12
Vietnamese PhD Students
9
10
12
18
Employed faculty from
Vietnam
0 0 3
3
Grants with Vietnamese
partners
0 0 0
1
Joint Conferences
0 1 1 2 Joint Publications
0 0 0
12
Participation in Education
Exhibitions in Vietnam
1 1 2
5
Short-term academic
mobility, Russian university
faculty to Vietnam
0 8 10
15
Short-term academic
mobility, Vietnamese faculty
to the Russian university
0 1 2
4
Total number of agreements
signed with Vietnamese
partners
2 7 10
14
Active agreements
0 2 4
5
Vietnam, 2012-2015.
The table reveals considerable growth of these internationalization
indicators in 2015. The number of PhD students doubled in the 2012-2015
period due to the activities of the remote office. The university employed
faculty from Vietnam and applied for joint Russia-Vietnam grants with
them. The international group of scientists received one of such grants in
2015. The grant resulted in publishing 12 joint research papers in Russian
and international journals by late 2015.
123
The faculty of the Russian university started giving lectures to
Vietnamese students and faculty in Vietnamese universities. These lectures
were arranged by the remote office and most of them taught chemical
engineering, petrochemistry, and basic Russian.
Intensification of short-term academic mobility of faculty is also
achieved through joint conferences in both countries and invited
international participants. These conferences are an excellent platform for
meetings of Russian and Vietnamese scientists with their foreign colleagues
and students.
The last two indicators are the number of agreements and the number
of active agreements, respectively. Despite the large number of signed
Memorandums of Understanding, only a small part of agreements are active
and provide all the growth. These agreements were signed with universities,
while networking with business and administrative bodies was successful
without any MoUs.
Summary and Discussion
The networking model was developed and tested for
internationalization of a Russian university in Vietnam. According to this
model, the university upgraded its internationalization from the Level 1 to
the Level 2. It is far, however, from the internationalization level of top
world universities (Level 4), so this success is only intermediate and there is
space for further progress.
According to the model-independent statistical indicators (Table 8),
the model success is confirmed by intensified academic exchange and new
activities such as joint conferences, publications and grants.
The major challenge at this stage is cooperation with industry, which
is much less intensive than successful cooperation with administrative
bodies (both in Russia and Vietnam) and universities. A possible reason is
that the university has not fully used its potential in academic mobility
internationalization, which is the most typical and traditional area of
university global outreach. Further growth may require deeper industrial
engagement for developing successful academic mobility and training
programs involving students, faculty and engineers, such as capstone
projects [147] and taking foreign language learning factor into
consideration [102] as it is important for training future engineers and
successful industrial cooperation.
The model proved to be successful for Level 1 and 2 networking
projects. Its efficiency, however, needs to be confirmed for higher level
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networking activities (Levels 3 and 4, according to the model), such as dual
degree programs, joint labs with industrial companies, and etc. This model
testing will be accomplished for the Russia-Vietnam partnership in the
forthcoming years and the model will be modified if negative effects
appear.
Another future task is the adaptation of this model to other countryto-country networking such as cooperation of Russian universities with
Chinese or European partners. The next plans are to test this model for
partnership with China. A top-down approach can be seen in grouping
activities by levels in this paper (negotiations are carried out by top
managers first which then pass their orders to their subordinates who
implement agreed projects). This approach is traditional for Russia and
Vietnam and resulted in certain success. The next stage is to test this model
for partnerships in Europe and America. However, cooperation with these
countries (such as the U.S. and Germany, for example) may require other
approaches, such as stronger consideration of cross-cultural communication
[108] and resulting regrouping of activities by the levels.
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INDUSTRIAL NETWORKING THROUGH ACADEMIC
COOPERATION
Modern industrial clusters represent a complex of various companies
and enterprises engaged in the same branch of industry; they unite their
efforts to achieve common goals and complement each other. A cluster
approach is popular in the leading industrial regions of Russia. This paper
focuses on the internationalization practices of a Russian regional
petrochemical cluster which combines oil refining, processing, and oil
producing companies, as well as technical and industrial parks, universities
and research institutions. The goal of this cluster of organizations is to
produce research that can be applied to real-life situations in the
petrochemical industry.
Today the strategic goal of the cluster development is to broaden its
international networking into the Asia-Pacific region, where Vietnam was
selected as one of the targeted countries for integration with industry due to
active regional and national agreements and projects. Here we should
mention that 40 percent of crude oil and around 25 percent of natural gas
Vietnamese companies produce together with their Russian partners. In this
respect the need for qualitative engineers for joint projects attains greater
importance. However, a general problem the cluster faces is the need for
successful approaches for Asia. The reason is that efficient practices for
Europe had poor effect in Asia-Pacific as different intercultural aspects and
various details had to be considered to ensure success.
The authors describe new practices which have been implemented to
solve this problem. First, a Russian research university engaged in research
for the cluster was selected as a site which helps the cluster with challenging
process of internationalization. Next, a representative office of this Russian
university was established in Vietnam to balance cultural, linguistic,
psychological, and administrative issues. This office employs Vietnamese
graduates of this university and coordinates cooperation between Russian
and Vietnamese partners.
We explain a novel approach for arranging international networking
in industry through establishing academic linkages between educational and
research centers. The authors show a step-by-step process of this
networking, including the visit of Russian regional authorities to Vietnam to
overcome administrative barriers, cooperation of Russian and Vietnamese
engineering universities, joint research, and as a result joint industrial
126
projects negotiated by the leaders of the industrial companies during the
visit of the cluster companies to Vietnam.
The modern world is witnessing widespread international linkage in
research, innovations, technologies, and engineering. In terms of global
challenges and competition, implementation of innovative projects and
marketing research results are often facilitated by the creation of research
and production chains that involve various organizations. Russia has
successfully adopted world practices in creating such chains on a national
level as innovative clusters. The cluster approach for furthering industrial
development is regulated by a series of fundamental documents on strategic
planning [75].
Clustering makes it easier to unite efforts in industry and education,
to enforce economic development, and to improve national living standards.
On a regional level, local universities introduce and utilize the cluster policy
to provide their educational services to students and young specialists. In
Russia, the experience of integrating industrial platforms for educational
purposes is widely spread among engineering institutions – colleges and
universities. For instance, students of engineering programs are required to
undergo an internship at industrial enterprises of the region and perform a
capstone project to demonstrate the new competencies they have obtained
within the internship period. While regional academic-industrial cooperation
through cluster partnership demonstrates positive results for training highly
qualified specialists at present, it should involve international experience in
order to remain up-to-date in the forthcoming years.
However, the idea of expanding clustering to an international level
brings up the series of potential issues that arise from the collision of
interests of two (or several) international partners, along with problems
related to the differences in management and organizational structures of the
partner organizations, such as legal regulation of international activity,
patenting, authorship rights, and others. These issues are major, and
underneath them there is a row of minor aspects which determine the
readiness of cluster participants for international cooperation. The authors
believe that in many cases the psychological readiness and willingness of
the participants have a strong impact on the effectiveness of any project.
This paper demonstrates that the readiness of the industrial partners to
overcome obstacles that can limit the success of their international projects
could be cultivated by academic cooperation. Long term collaboration in
education builds trust in relationships, since education is the area of
interaction when parties cannot rely only on their formal agreements. In this
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respect, the personal attitudes and a degree of belief between the partners
play an important role as well.
The research described in this paper focuses on a model of
international cooperation between a Russian engineering university and its
Vietnamese colleagues, and the ability of that consortium to attract
industrial partners in Vietnam and Russia. It demonstrates that international
academic collaboration could become a target-oriented mechanism of
enhancing industrial growth and its internationalization.
Regional Innovative Clusters in Russia and Their Academic
Linkages
In 1998, Michael Porter wrote about innovation clusters: “Promoting
cluster formation in developing economies means starting at the most basic
level. Policy-makers must first address the foundations: improving
education and skill levels” [126].
Clusters are regional conglomerates of industrial enterprises,
innovative companies, universities, and research organizations. The
indispensable condition for providing competitive growth of a cluster is
attracting qualified engineers who are competent in specific industrial
spheres as well as in multicultural communication. Therefore, universities
are critical components to the success of innovative clusters, in their role as
the centers of expertise and qualification. Further, engineering universities
can provide solutions for even broader challenges that the innovative
clusters may face.
One of the biggest innovative and production clusters in Russia is
located in the Republic of Tatarstan, a region in the Russian Federation
located 500 miles to the east of Moscow. The Republic is well known for its
chemical, petrochemical, oil producing companies and mechanical
engineering enterprises. The Republic is a leader in integrating the
representatives from an industrial sector into a cluster which unites dozens
of huge and medium projects in the area of petrochemistry, mechanical
engineering, business services, human resources training, and others. Along
with industrial companies, the cluster includes a number of academic and
research institutions, national research universities, technology transfer
centers, and industrial and IT parks. A wide range of organizations
facilitates a complete chain, working from an original idea and the product
development, up to the development of innovative production technology
[40].
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Prospects of International Cooperation
While the cluster has a well-designed inner hierarchy and stable
schemes of cooperating with domestic partners, international expansion for
many of the residential companies is still challenging. In practice,
international governmental policies affect partnership relationships between
enterprises and academic institutions. Today, the strategic goal of the
Republic’s cluster development is to broaden its international networking
into the Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam was selected as one of the target
countries for integration with industry due to its multiple regional and
national agreements and projects. For instance, 40 percent of crude oil and
around 25 percent of natural gas Vietnamese companies produce together
with their Russian partners; the largest Russian and Vietnam oil producing
companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate
their joint work. In 2015, other important documents were signed,
specifically a Plan of Investment, an MoU on revamping the power plants in
Vietnam, an agreement between railway companies, and others [135].
However, even after critical documents have been signed by both
parties, it is important to consider different aspects of establishing
international cooperation between industrial companies. First of all,
attracting industrial companies to an international partnership implies more
responsibilities and a new level of partnership. When a company joins any
international project, new issues and challenges appear, induced by the
differences in legal and regulatory systems of the partners as well as cultural
and mentality patterns. Challenging questions that arise include: How can
we best align the R&D documents between the international partners? What
is the gap between the regulatory grounds of the countries? What is the best
way to negotiate when European and Asian ways of thinking collide?
Russian companies have certain experience in developing
collaboration with, for example, their partners from the European industry.
However, practices that had been effective in partnerships within Europe
had not been effective in the Asia-Pacific region, as different intercultural
aspects and various details had to be considered to ensure success. One of
them is location. Asian countries are geographically distant from the
European part of Russia and it is quite time-consuming to support friendly
connections while around 4,000 miles away from the partners. Interactive
tools for communication that are in common use with the European or
American colleagues, such as Skype video calls, are not well accepted by
partners from Asia, where personal meetings are preferable.
129
Fruitful cooperation requires efficient mechanisms of doing business
in Asia-Pacific considering the differences between European and Asian
culture. The academic sphere could become a platform for enterprises to
develop their internationalization initiatives.
Academic Cooperation Promotes Industrial Networking
The experience of Russian universities demonstrates that it is easier
for academic institutions to establish international linkages in the R&D
sector – each academic institution has a number of partners to implement its
international programs or to perform research. When an institution of this
kind is involved in a more complex cooperation (a cluster) it can distribute
the benefits it gains from international partnership and share the positive
experience with its industrial partners. In this respect, the cluster provides a
full product chain from fundamental research to marketing a new product. In
addition, the cluster has a full cycle of professional education, from
academic courses at universities for training the qualified engineers or
researchers to professional training of personnel at cluster companies.
In order to manage the abovementioned issues successfully, a Russian
research university engaged in R&D activities for the cluster was selected to
be a site which assisted the cluster in the challenging process of
internationalization. This university has effectively developed partnerships
with educational institutions in different parts of Vietnam. Some
relationships have been recently established and are only in the very
beginning; others are well-developed and characterized by sustainable
linkages with academic and research divisions. The research university is
focused on chemical engineering and petrochemistry. This is the reason why
it becomes an important element in the structure of the cluster. The relative
profile of the university programs underlines its interest in firm connections
with engineering universities and institutions. The closest Vietnam partner
of the research university is located in the northern part of the county and
has a similar academic background. In addition, it is also engaged in
cooperation with industry and promotes the ideas of engineering education.
The highlight of the Vietnamese system of education is that various
universities are monitored and supervised by different authorities. Many
educational institutions report to the Ministry of Education and Training, but
some are governed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Correspondingly,
the engineering institutes and colleges that the Russian research university
cooperates with are supervised by these government bodies. Besides being
in charge of engineering education in the country, the Ministry is
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