Vietnam Women’s Academy’s Journal of Science (VWA JOS) was established under Decision No. 01/QD-HVPNVN of the President of VWA and operates under Publishing License No. 561/GP-BTTTT dated November 13, 2017. The Journal’s birth is of great significance to the implementation of VWA’s functions and tasks and to the enhancement of research work, promoting the realization of the Academy’s Strategic Plan to 2025 and vision to 2030. The Journal is a forum for exchanging scientific research results and connecting teams of domestic and foreign scientists. On July 5, 2024, the State Council for Professorship announced the latest decision on raising the scoring level for scientific articles published in VWA JOS. According to this decision, scientific articles published in the journal will be given 0.75 points if they are in the interdisciplinary field of Philosophy – Political Science – Sociology and 0.5 points if they are in the field of Economics. This is a significant development of the Journal after 6 years of operation since the first issue was launched. 

Speaking at the opening of the seminar, Assoc.Prof. Dr. DUONG Kim Anh, Editor-in-Chief of VWA JOS emphasized: “The magazine has has constantly made efforts to improve its quality and increase its reputation in the scientific community. Since 2018, the number of articles submitted to the Journal has been increasing. In 2024, the Journal received more than 90 articles, of which 46 were from authors outside VWA. This is a testament to the development and interest of scientists at home and abroad.”

VWA JOS has made significant achievements, such as increasing the assessment scores for the two interdisciplinary fields of philosophy and economics, developing a new website, and ensuring timely publication. However, the Journal still faces many challenges, especially in attracting high-quality articles in the fields of Psychology and Law.

At the seminar, Sr.Spec. MA. HA Thi Thanh Van, Vice President of VWA, shared important orientations for the Journal in the coming time. Vice President HA Thi Thanh Van emphasized: “The Journal not only needs to focus on articles with high scientific content but also needs to pay attention to practicality. The articles are not only academic but also need to have practical solutions that are useful to the community. To expand the readership, the Journal needs to create more sections such as Research Exchange to attract experienced practitioners, while increasing the sharing of multi-dimensional perspectives related to gender and women’s issues.”

Vice President HA Thi Thanh Van also noted the quality of review, especially for articles on Law major, it is necessary to select reviewers with deep expertise and appropriateness to ensure a sharp perspective. In addition, building a list of articles published annually will help lecturers, students and readers easily look up and take advantage of it.

The discussion session received many profound comments from experts. Assoc.Prof. Dr. VU Manh Loi – Former Vice Rector of the Institute of Sociology – Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences highly appreciated the Journal’s interest in international readers, and proposed to change the name of VWA JOS to better reflect the spirit and characteristics of VWA. He also recommended that the Journal should maximize its interdisciplinary nature and build sections on field research, theory and scientific exchange.

Prof. Dr. NGUYEN Tuan Anh – Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, University of Social Sciences & Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, recommended that the Journal should standardize standards such as citations in APA 7 style and improve editorial consistency. He also suggested dividing articles by topic to create coherence and ease of access.

Assoc.Prof. Dr. TU Thuy Anh – Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Economics and Management emphasized the importance of building a press economic development strategy for the Journal, such as collecting publishing fees, selling print and electronic copies. She also proposed to promote communication to promote the Journal more widely in the research community.

One of the key contents of the seminar was to discuss the strategic direction of JOS.

Prof. Dr. NGUYEN Huu Minh – President of the Vietnam Sociological Association proposed that the Journal should build a forum for exchanging new ideas to suggest further research, and at the same time introduce a general table of contents of articles to support lecturers, students and researchers to easily access information.

Prof. Dr. LE Ngoc Hung highly appreciated the professionalism of VWA JOS and recommended improving the structure of the article to be clearer and more stable, especially in the introduction and conclusion, while enhancing the inheritance in the reference materials, focusing on articles that are suitable for the academy and gender equality policy, instead of following international criteria such as ISI or Scopus to avoid wasting resources.

Many delegates recommended that the Journal should be developed into a specific research channel on gender, serving the policies of the Party and the State, and at the same time expanding its readership internationally. In addition, scientists and delegates from inside and outside the Academy also contributed many ideas to build the Journal to be more complete and affirm its reputation with its unique values.

At the end of the seminar, Assoc.Prof. Dr. DUONG Kim Anh affirmed: “The valuable contributions of experts will be absorbed and applied immediately from the next issues of the Journal. This is the basis for VWA JOS to continue to affirm its position, becoming a prestigious academic forum domestically and internationally.”

The seminar has opened up many prospects for the JOS, from content innovation, improving form to determining long-term strategies. With the support of scientists, the Journal of Science of Vietnam Women’s Academy promises to continuously expand to better meet the needs of the academic and practical community.