Gastbeitrag: Dalat University – Studieren in wunderschöner Umgebung

Dalat University (DLU), established in 1976, is a non-profit public multi-disciplinary university. The predecessor institution of DLU was a higher education institution established in 1958 called Dalat Institute of Higher Education. Nowadays, DLU is the oldest and biggest higher-education institution located in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.

DLU’s teaching staff are lecturers and scientists with high professional qualifications, ethics and enthusiasm. The number of faculty and staff members of DLU is nearly 500, of which 120 are associate professors and doctorate holders, (accounting for 38% of the total number of lecturers).

DLU is currently hosting more than 11,000 domestic and international students, and offering 56 academic programs, including 06 doctoral, 09 Master’s and 41 Bachelor’s programs. The fields of study spread from Science and Technology, Social Sciences and Humanities, Natural Sciences, Economics, Law, Tourism, to Foreign Languages.

DLU has been accredited based on the standards set by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam. Also, DLU is an official member of the ASEAN University Network (AUN). The University’s scientific journal is one of the first six Vietnamese scientific journals listed in the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI).

Currently, DLU is constantly innovating and improving its quality in order to provide students with the best conditions to improve their knowledge, to comprehensively develop skills, qualities, and attitudes, and to respond well to the needs of development and international integration.

Strength in research

1. Pharmaceutical Chemistry: Main research areas include pharmaceutical synthesis, extraction of medicinal plants, pharmaceutical analysis and quality control.
2. Environment and Natural Resources: Main research areas include water and wastewater treatment, water resource pollution control, solid waste treatment, environmental quality assessment, carbon monitoring and measuring.
3. Agriculture and Forestry: Agronomy program includes two majors: Crop Science and Plant Protection. The training program and research focus on vegetables, industrial plants, flowers, application of hi-technology in agriculture, soilless culture, green-house cultivation, in-vitro propagation, plant diseases, insects and plant parasitic nematodes.
4. Biology: We focus on modern biology areas and are mostly concerned with educating students in the life sciences and related fields. Lectures and experimental training encompass zoology, animal physiology, botany, plant physiology, ecology, genetic, molecular biology, biophysics, biochemistry, cell biology, etc.
5. Other fields such as math, sociology, history, etc. have also achieved great accomplishment.

Highlights of achievement

• One of the first universities in Vietnam applying the academic credit system in higher education (1994).
• One of the first 20 public universities in Vietnam accredited by the Ministry of Education and Training (2009).
• One of the first 4 universities in Vietnam approved as a full member of the CDIO Organization (2016).
• One of the 5 universities in Vietnam allowed to train Nuclear Engineering Programme (2012).
• The Dalat University Journal of Science is one of 6 scholarly journals in Vietnam indexed in ASEAN Citation Index (2017). It is the only scholarly journal in Vietnam indexed in DOAJ with DOAJ Seal (2020).
• Associate Professor Pham Tien Son, a senior lecturer at Faculty of Mathematics – Informatics of DLU, was one of three scientists who received the Ta Quang Buu Award 2020, the most prestigious and valuable annual awards for Vietnamese researchers. In 2021, Singapore-based Asian Scientist magazine has included five Vietnamese scientists on the list of 100 Asian scientists who have had outstanding achievements in scientific research. Pham Tien Son was one of the five Vietnamese scientists honoured.
• The number of articles published by DLU lecturers on peer-review international journals, i.e. SCOPUS or ISI, in the last 3 years of 2019, 2020 and 2021, is 34, 49, and 50 respectively.