This morning, December 4, VinFuture Week 2024 began in Hanoi with the first session of the science for life discussion series.

The highlight of the week was the VinFuture Awards Ceremony at the Ho Guom Theater on the evening of December 6. Before the first session of the Science for Life symposium, Professor Richard Henry Friend, Chairman of the VinFuture Awards Council, spoke to the press about some information about this year's awards season.

VinFuture is for the "best of the best"

When asked about which works were honored this year, Professor Richard said he could not reveal them but affirmed that the award committee had "searched everywhere, everywhere, to find something that would surprise everyone".

Professor Friend said: "The VinFuture team in Hanoi has worked very hard and dedicatedly to select many nominees for the award. The winners are always excellent, the best of the best. Fortunately, we always find enough good quality candidates to select the more deserving ones to award the award. In short, the number of nominations is always sufficient and the quality is very good. So far, we have found that the judging process has been done very well."

Concerned about Vietnam's awards, but the potential for Vietnamese scientists to win awards is very low, Professor Friend VinFuture is a science award, the works selected for the award must be developments in scientific research that no one has anticipated, no one can predict with the impacts that we want to create in real life. This makes it difficult for the award council to choose the nominees worthy of the award. On the other hand, it also makes the award more attractive and appealing.

In the past 4 years, many award-winning scientists have returned to Vietnam in a new role - as members of the award council. On the other hand, in those 4 years, many foreign scientists and international scientists have come to Vietnam. They have contacted, communicated and shared experiences very often with Vietnamese scientists. These are very positive things.

Exhibition What hope for Vietnamese science?

According to Professor Friend, from an objective perspective, he sees positive prospects for the development of Vietnamese science. Vietnam currently has many young researchers who are very intelligent and excellent. These are the people who will create a bright future for Vietnamese science. Professor Friend also said that this year, a Vietnamese scientific work was nominated for the VinFuture Prize 2024.

According to Professor Friend, as a global science award, the award council hopes that VinFuture can become the most prestigious award in the world. "We try to accurately reflect which places and regions in the world have had very clear and outstanding developments in scientific research and innovation activities," said Professor Friend.

Professor Friend also said that there are very clear changes in some countries where the scientific research foundation was not strong before and he believes that Vietnam will also become a country with high-level science and technology in the near future.

“Hopefully this will be reflected in future seasons,” said GS Friend.