Co-authorship and Credit
After the project ends: the papers written later are where credit quietly disappears
Funding stops, people disperse, and the secondary analyses get written by whoever still has time.
Vietnam Scholar
Working with Vietnamese scholars and institutions
Vietnam Scholar — a practical guide for international researchers, funders and universities working with Vietnamese counterparts: finding partners, agreements, co-authorship, and what does not translate.
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Common legal and administrative topics
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Guides updated to current Vietnamese law
Co-authorship and Credit
Finding Partners
Due diligence: speak to someone who worked with them and it did not go well
References supplied by the partner tell you they have satisfied someone. That was never in doubt.
Visiting and Hosting
Hosting well: the practical failures are what people remember, not the science
A visitor who cannot get into the building, open an account, or get paid will not remember the seminar.
Visiting and Hosting
The first exchange: define one deliverable, or it becomes a two-week tour
Exchange visits without a defined output produce goodwill, photographs, and no follow-up.
Data and Ethics
Community consent: individual signatures do not substitute for collective agreement
In many settings the research is only genuinely consented to when the community, not only the individual, has agreed.
Language and Communication
Writing a joint proposal: reviewers can tell when one side wrote it alone
A proposal drafted by one partner and circulated for approval reads exactly like what it is.
Common Misunderstandings
The capacity conversation: your partner has probably managed harder constraints than you have
Working productively under real constraint is a skill, and it is usually held by the side assumed to need help.
Agreements and Funding
Intellectual property: decide the rules while nothing is worth anything
Every intellectual property discussion is easy before there is a result and hard afterwards.
Institutions Explained
Shared facilities: access is often less of a constraint than consumables and service contracts
The instrument usually exists. What limits throughput is the supply chain around it.
Visiting and Hosting
Long partnerships: the third project is where the value is, and most partnerships stop at one
The first project pays for learning how to work together. Everything after that is where the return sits.
Data and Ethics
Datasets and code as outputs: the fastest way to give partners something that counts
A published dataset with its own authorship is a citable output that does not compete with anyone's paper.
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