University Research Commercialization in Vietnam after the 2025 Science, Technology and Innovation Law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jefrr/V2E9/2026-10Keywords:
academic entrepreneurship, higher education, innovation policy, intellectual property, technology transferAbstract
University research commercialization is increasingly important for converting publicly funded knowledge into marketable technologies, licensing transactions, spin-off firms, and broader economic value. Vietnam's 2025 Law on Science, Technology and Innovation substantially restructured the governance of publicly funded research outcomes by clarifying ownership, expanding institutional autonomy over commercialization, and strengthening benefit-sharing incentives. This study examines whether those legal changes are sufficient to improve commercialization in Vietnamese universities. It applies qualitative legal-institutional analysis to the 2025 Law and its implementing regulations, combines this with a critical review of the university technology-transfer literature, and uses recent institutional developments in Vietnam as illustrative evidence. The analysis identifies a central institution-capability gap. The new framework can reduce legal uncertainty and transaction delays, but commercialization performance remains conditional on universities' ability to evaluate technologies, manage intellectual-property portfolios, finance proof-of-concept activities, structure transactions, engage firms early, and align researchers' career incentives with application-oriented outputs. The paper therefore argues that Vietnam's post-2025 policy agenda should move from legal empowerment alone toward a commercialization-capability architecture that combines professional technology transfer offices, transitional finance, risk-based internal governance, market-facing university-industry mechanisms, and outcome-oriented performance data.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Nguyen Thi Ngoc Thuy, Nguyen The Cuong (Author)
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