Current Situation and Solutions to Increase Social Criticism Participation of Science and Technology Organizations —Case Study of Affiliated Science and Technology Organizations of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations

To promote democracy and strengthen social consensus, social criticism has been considered an important tool and information channel in Vietnam nowadays to help State’s policy-making agencies to make the right decisions that in line with the people’s need. However, the reality of social criticism work in Vietnam in general and of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) in particular still has limitations. Regarding the mechanism, although there have been many state documents regulating the role and function of VUSTA’s social criticism such as Decision No. 1795/QD-TTg on October 21, 2015 of the Prime Minister, Decision No. 14/2014/QD-TTg on February 14, 2014 of the Prime Minister, Circular No. 11 on January 29, 2015 of the Ministry of Finance, People’s Committees of provinces and cities issued Regulations on consultation, criticism and social assessment for local VUSTA, there is still a lack of effective mechanisms to gather, attract and encourage the participation of scientists and member associations of VUSTA, especially science and technology (S&T) organizations under VUSTA. In recent years, many S&T organizations under VUSTA have played an active role in research activities and participating in social criticism, contributing to perfecting policies, laws, programs and projects for socio-economic development. However, the operations of affiliated S&T organizations still face many difficulties because of capacity of S&T organizations is limited and regulations to create an environment for S&T organizations to operate are not yet complete, especially in social criticism activities. There are many aspects in assessing the current status of participating in social criticism of S&T organizations under VUSTA, such as regulations on functions and tasks, on research, consulting and social criticism capacity of S&T organizations; analyzing the causes affecting the participation in social criticism activities of S&T organizations. This article will focus on evaluating and analyzing the current state of social criticism capacity and propose some solutions to increase the participation in social criticism of S&T organizations under VUSTA.