In 2017, DTU published 372 papers, compared with 230 in 2016 and 1015 in 2015. 92% of those were published in advanced scientific journals selected by ISI, the American Institute for Scientific Information. The remainder totaled 12 in Scopus, 13 in other international publications and 7 in books published by Springer, Elsevier, Wiley and IGI Global.
As a result, in 2017, DTU had one paper published internationally every day on average, which is the highest so far, in addition to other significant achievements. DTU was the first private university in Vietnam to receive national quality accreditation and also won the Vietnamese Talent prize and the Newton prize 2017.
Increase in Quality
DTU had many publications in well-known journals with high impact factors (IFs) in 2017. These included The Lancet, (IF=47.831; 7 papers), Lancet Neurology (26.284; 1 paper), Lancet Respiratory Medicine (19.287; 1 paper), and Lancet Global Health (17.686, 1 paper). Others were in journals published by the AMA, such as JAMA Oncology (16.559; 2 papers) and JAMA Pediatrics (10.251; 1 paper).
Scientists working in a modern DTU laboratory
It is important to note that the reported refusal rate is 95% in The Lancet and 89% in AMA journals, proving that the hard work of DTU researchers finally paid off when their papers were accepted.
As well as the above, 39 papers were published in journals with IFs from 4 to 10, such as Environmental Health Perspectives, Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology, the Journal of Power Sources, Carbon, Chemical Engineering Journal, European Physical Journal C, and the Chemistry-A European Journal.
DTU’s efforts improving not only the quantity but the quality of research have led to results to be proud of.
The Main Researcher
Conducting research and publishing the results is very difficult today for just one research, especially in experimental sciences. Often, collaboration with other universities and research institutes are essential. Publications general have several or even dozens of authors, and in some cases thousands of authors.
Determining the contribution of each author of a paper with many co-authors causes headaches to many a science manager. There are, however, several indicators as to who the main contributors really are. The first author and/or the corresponding author are generally the project leaders.
Of the 340 ISI papers published in 2017, DTU researchers are the main authors of 243, accounting for 71.2%. In 2016 and 2015 this ratio was 67.9 (142/209) and 63.4 (64/101) respectively, which means that DTU researchers were main contributors about three-quarters of their publications and research leaders.
With increases year-by-year, this shows the effectiveness of the university’s research investment policy.
International Recognition
Recently, DTU has been ranked by Nature, a world-famous scientific publisher, on its research capacity in Vietnam. This ranking, called the Nature Index, is based on the number of ISI publications in leading journals and takes the contributions of each school or institute into account. They ranked DTU sixth in Vietnam, one of two Central Vietnamese universities, (the other being Vinh University). However, DTU was the only private university to enter the top ten in Vietnam after ranking eighth in 2016. This demonstrates how the research environment at DTU is consistently stabilizing, also reflecting the effectiveness of the university’s research policy.
The 2017 ranking - Source: NatureIndex.com
With these achievements, DTU can confidently set its sights on becoming one of the leading research universities in Southeast Asia and the entire Asia-Pacific region in the not too distant future.
(Media Center)