Scientists' strength: [7] Waiting for a broad mechanism

The flame of passion amidst worries

The Mekong Delta Rice Institute is one of the specialized research institutes under the Vietnam Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Spanning nearly half a century of formation and development, the institute has bred and selected hundreds of rice variants, transferred numerous technical advances to serve production, and made crucial contributions to the development of the rice industry in the Mekong Delta region and the entire country.

Behind those achievements is the silent dedication of many generations of scientific cadres. In recent years, like many other scientific research units, the Mekong Delta Rice Institute has been on the path toward financial self-reliance.

Dr. Nguyen Thuy Kieu Tien, Deputy Director of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, confided that financial self-reliance is both a driving force and a pressure for the Institute. To generate resources to maintain operations, alongside scientific research duties, the Institute must boost service, production, and business activities, and exploit revenue from variety copyrights. However, these revenue sources are highly volatile.

Particularly in 2026, production and business activities faced numerous difficulties as rice prices dropped and farmers restricted investments in seeds, dragging down the Institute's revenue significantly. Meanwhile, revenue from variety copyrights also faced intense competitive pressure from many research units and enterprises in the rice seed sector.

Not only that, the rising cost of materials and labor has also significantly increased the expenses for executing research topics. The budget estimation for research topics usually spans about 5 years, leading to price slippage, which causes certain obstacles in the bidding and procurement of materials.

In this context, the scientific cadres of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute no longer focus solely on specialized research, but must also learn management skills, build cooperative relationships, and participate in service activities to generate additional revenue for the unit.

Despite the pressure, the Institute's leadership makes great efforts to maintain a stable working environment so that the staff can confidently stick with the profession. Trade union regimes, caring for the children of staff during holidays and New Year, or supporting sudden difficult cases are still maintained.

Currently, the Institute has about 140 cadres, officials, and workers employed across the management, scientific research, and service blocs, with an average income of more than 10 million VND per person per month. Compared to many research units in the system, this is a relatively stable income level. However, when placed next to society's general standard, especially in the context of rising prices, this figure remains quite modest.

Dr. Kieu Tien added that the income of the staff has improved year by year, creating more motivation for everyone to work with peace of mind. However, the Institute's leadership is still not satisfied, as it is not yet commensurate with the effort and "brainpower" invested by the research team.

In the context where many research units in the system face financial difficulties, maintaining stable operations represents a massive effort from the collective cadres, officials, and workers of the Mekong Delta Rice Institute. This is also the foundation for the team of scientists to continue pursuing long-term research, preparing for new development opportunities in the coming time.

Waiting for the day big ideas "take off"

Nowadays, agriculture is viewed through the lens of a "digital economy," requiring research units to continuously innovate to meet the increasingly high demands of reality.

At the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, the research infrastructure system is constantly invested in and perfected. The greenhouse zones, experimental fields, and production fields are continuously upgraded. The field plots, canal systems, and intra-field transport network have been completed and concreted.

The warehouse and seed processing area has also been upgraded with a processing capacity of nearly 10.000 tons of seeds per year, ensuring service for 200 hectares of on-site production fields and cooperative production of nearly 2.000 hectares across various localities.

However, faced with the requirement of streamlining the apparatus, improving operational efficiency, and increasingly fierce competition in scientific research, the Mekong Delta Rice Institute also stands before the demand to continuously innovate management mindsets, operational methods, and multi-dimensional approaches in research.

The issuance of Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo has opened up a new horizon for the team of scientists at the Mekong Delta Rice Institute. When mentioning Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, Dr. Kieu Tien could not help but utter the word "eager." For the first time, contents regarding innovation, risk acceptance in scientific research, and investment in basic research have been placed in an important position. That is what many researchers have been anticipating for many years.

Ngay trong năm 2025, the Mekong Delta Rice Institute proposed many breakthrough and innovative research topics. These are research directions expected to create new steps forward in variety selection, biotechnology, and sustainable agricultural development. However, to date, none of those proposals have been approved, leaving quite a few scientists feeling somewhat disappointed.

“The yearning of every cadre here is that basic research receives more attention to serve strategic research and long-term applications. Perhaps the Institute's proposals do not yet align with the current demands or priority orientations,” Dr. Kieu Tien shared.

Nevertheless, new ideas continue to be proposed by the Mekong Delta Rice Institute. A positive signal is that recently, the Mekong Delta Rice Institute was included in the investment proposal list to construct an Excellent Breeding and Selection Center serving Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW, with a capital of about 60 billion VND from the public investment program. This is not merely a facility investment project but also shows that the spirit of Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW is step by step being materialized.

For the scientists at the Mekong Delta Rice Institute, what they wait for is not just new projects or large investments, but a mechanism broad enough to nurture research. Dr. Kieu Tien firmly believes that when research activities become more open, breakthrough ideas will be granted opportunities to be tested, and risks in science will be properly recognized for their true value.