Advances in innovation
According to StartupBlink, a Singapore-based research organisation specialising in innovation ecosystems, Viet Nam currently ranks 52nd globally and eighth in Asia in terms of its business environment for innovation. Several sub-indicators are even among the regional leaders, including tax incentives, operating costs, and market size.
Viet Nam’s pillar of incentives for innovative enterprises ranks highly (21st globally). Tax policies, investment support, and mechanisms encouraging reinvestment are helping to provide businesses with greater room for development in their early stages.
Do Tien Thinh, Deputy Director of the National Innovation Centre, noted that the most prominent feature is a systemic shift, from policy frameworks to implementation methods.
With the issuance of major Party resolutions, particularly Resolution 57, innovation has become a consistent political commitment. The approach has clearly shifted, transforming the mindset across the entire political system and laying the groundwork for more proactive local action.
Many provinces and cities have begun allocating specific resources to science, technology, and innovation, establishing start-up support centres, and forming dedicated implementation bodies. Ha Noi has taken the lead with a pioneering pilot model — the Joint Stock Company for the Ha Noi Innovation Centre.
Dr Tran Quang Hung, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Ha Noi Innovation Centre Joint Stock Company, said the model combines the State, businesses, and universities, with the State holding a 70% stake.
“The centre is envisioned as a ‘runway’ connecting researchers and start-ups with real-world problems, thereby generating social value and new business models linked to the digital economy,” he said.
What sets this model apart is not only its capital structure but also its market-oriented operation. The centre can mobilise venture capital funds, connect co-working spaces, and coordinate with government departments to define problems and identify appropriate solutions. This marks a significant shift, enabling innovation resources to be allocated more flexibly and efficiently compared with traditional models.
Open mechanisms for resources and emerging challenges
One of the fundamental changes in the current phase is the close linkage between innovation and real-world challenges. Instead of developing technology from a supply-driven approach, many localities — particularly Ha Noi — have shifted towards a demand-driven model based on specific socio-economic needs.
Ha Noi’s announcement of a list of 30 major challenges for the 2026–2030 period is a clear example. These challenges span areas such as traffic congestion, environmental pollution, urban governance, and the development of the digital economy, data, and social welfare. Each is described in detail in terms of current conditions, objectives, and expected outputs, creating opportunities for scientists, businesses, and start-ups to participate in solving them.
According to Dr Tran Quang Hung, “commissioning” major challenges is an effective way to attract high-quality resources. “Talented individuals are driven to solve meaningful problems. When the city presents sufficiently large challenges with clear social impact and accompanying resources, they become magnets for talent,” he emphasised.
However, for these challenges to move beyond ideas, a sufficiently flexible institutional mechanism is required to connect resources and coordinate implementation. This is precisely why Ha Noi has developed the Ha Noi Innovation Centre Joint Stock Company model — a pilot initiative with high expectations.
Dr Tran Quang Hung noted that combining the “triple helix” model while operating under a joint stock company mechanism offers a key advantage: the ability to balance public orientation with market mechanisms.
Unlike traditional public innovation centres, which are often constrained by administrative procedures and financial regulations, the joint stock company model allows the use of market-based tools. The centre can collaborate with venture capital funds, run start-up accelerator programmes, operate co-working spaces, and even invest in promising projects.
More importantly, the centre acts as a “coordinator” within the ecosystem. Rather than fragmented activities by individual entities, it connects stakeholders — from regulatory agencies and large corporations to start-ups, research institutes, and universities — around specific challenges.
This approach is particularly suited to the nature of innovation, where no single actor can solve complex problems alone. As Dr Hung pointed out, start-ups offer flexibility and specialised expertise, while large enterprises bring resources and scale.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to research on the role of innovation in sustainable economic growth. The authors demonstrated that innovation is key to overcoming the middle-income trap and maintaining productivity, especially in the context of rapidly advancing technologies such as AI.
In practice, some of Ha Noi’s challenges have already begun to find solutions and entered the pilot phase. The centre serves as a hub to receive solutions from the community, evaluate them, and connect with relevant authorities for pilot implementation. This is an important step in narrowing the gap between research and application — a long-standing weakness of the innovation ecosystem.
Another notable feature of Ha Noi’s approach is its open mechanism for mobilising resources. The city is not relying solely on the state budget but is actively mobilising socialised resources, public–private partnerships, and investment funds. At the same time, controlled experimental models (sandboxes) are being encouraged, providing space for new ideas to be tested in practice.
At the national level, policies are gradually removing barriers to resource flows. Allowing the use of public assets to support the innovation ecosystem, expanding tax incentives for businesses and experts, and encouraging university spin-off enterprises are all significant steps.
However, as Do Tien Thinh candidly noted, the biggest challenge lies in implementation. Although the system of laws and decrees is relatively comprehensive, execution remains slow in many places, particularly in recognising beneficiaries eligible for incentives. This has made it difficult for many businesses to access policy support.
As Viet Nam stands before major opportunities in the global innovation value chain, identifying appropriate and effective models will be key to turning potential into genuine competitive advantage.
Ultimately, innovation is not merely about technology, but about how resources are organised and problems are solved. This requires not only a shift in thinking at the central level but also among local authorities themselves.
