HCM CITY — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has exhorted the Vietnamese-German University (VGU) to become a leading research hub not only at the national level but also the regional and international levels.

Meeting with the university’s management during a visit to the southern province of Bình Dương on Thursday, he urged them to focus on training human resources in sectors in which Việt Nam has great need such as automotive engineering, IT and sustainable urban planning.

He wanted VGU to become an international-standard research university, whose achievements and reputation are based on the results of its scientific research, and share the results with the country and international community.

He hailed the efforts of its staff and students and their achievements during the nine years of its existence.

VGU has so far had 33 papers published in international journals, presented 50 papers at prestigious national and international conferences, and organised 22 national and international conferences.

“This is very impressive for a nine-year-old international university,” the PM said.

He thanked Germany, especially its Hessen State, for supporting VGU and hailed the Bình Dương Province administration’s continuing efforts to help build it.

He called the university a symbol of the economic co-operation and friendship between Việt Nam and Germany.

He called on it to adopt Germany’s advanced education system and engineering technologies to strengthen the ties between the two nations.

The PM instructed the Ministry of Education and Training to consider an appropriate financial autonomy model for VGU to enable it to achieve its full potential and contribute to local and national socio-economic growth.

VGU was the first public university to be founded under the new-model university project in 2008.

It offers 11 different programmes in science, engineering and technology, six of them master’s degrees and the rest undergraduate courses.

Besides funding support from the two governments, it also receives strong academic support from more than 30 German partner universities. — VNS