VietNamNet Bridge – The budget of 650 billion dong to the Advanced Mathematics Institute has become the hot topic on many forums. The huge amount of money committed to the institute shows the strong determination of the State to develop basic sciences. Professor Dr Le Tuan Hoa, Managing Director of the institute, talks about the issue.

There have been widespread and inconclusive discussions about the budget. Some people say the State proves to be too generous to allocate such a huge budget to the institute in the context of the current big difficulties. Meanwhile, others say the sum of money is not enough for scientific research. What would you say about that?

The 651 billion dong budget is expected to be disbursed for the mathematics program as a whole within 10 years. Of this amount, the money the Advanced Mathematics Institute expects to receive is 50 percent. However, whether the sum of money is disbursed fully, or the institute can receive the 50 percent will still depend on the implementation.

How much will the institute receive every year?

In theory, the institute would receive 30 billion dong. However, in 2011, the institute operated for half a year and it got less than 4 billion dong. Meanwhile, in 2012, it expects to receive 15 billion dong only. Though the institute operates under the self-control mode, the State will only allocate money based on projects and the plans to be implemented which will be supervised and approved by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Do you mean that the spending of the institute would still have to follow strict procedures?

Yes, I do. Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan told Professor Ngo Bao Chau to do what the institute wants. However, this should be understood that the institute will be given a high “autonomy.” Regarding the finance regulations, the disbursements will be made only when three Ministries of Education and Training, Finance and Science and Technology agree.

It seems that the sum of money is not as big as people think…

I can say that the sum of money is not big. The budget is not higher than the budget allocated for another research institute. It’s more important how the money will be used.

At first, we asked for the budget of one trillion dong, and the ministries only agreed to allocate 651 billion dong. The sum of money is not enough for creating 6.5 kilometers of highway.

The budgets for mathematics in other countries are much bigger than Vietnam. South Korea, for example, allocated the budget of 20 million dollars to the advanced institute (three majors: mathematics, physics and computing science) in 2011. Pakistan and Malaysia also gave their mathematics institutes, which are not national institutes, the money bigger than Vietnam. Meanwhile, our budget for 2012 would be 700,000 dollars only.

Could you please tell us about the key programs to be followed by the institute in the time to come?

The research program of Professor Ngo Bao Chau is now being done overseas, and we hope that a part of the program would be carried out in Vietnam. If succeeds, this would become an attractive point in the world’s mathematics map. You may have heard about the Global Optimization theory of Professor Hoang Tuy which is now under the threat of getting disappeared because of the indifference of the youth. It is now necessary to retain this, or this will be a serious loss for Vietnam.

Source: Dat Viet