Hanoi (VNA) –ꦆ “Global connection” is what the world is in need, said Associate Professor Tran Xuan Bach, a lecturer at the Hanoi Medical University who has become the first Vietnamese person to win the Noam Chomsky’s Shining Star Achievement in Research Award.

The humankind is garnering efforts to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. However, more severe crises such as environmental catastrophes are awaiting ahead, the 36-year-old scientist cited the message by linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky as saying.

Great source of inspiration

Bach said he always treasures all acknowledgements, and regards all messages and aspirations of the scientist community as a source of inspiration and encouragement for him and his co-workers to make greater efforts, towards new targets.

𒊎 “It is my great honour to receive the award named after Professor Noam Chomsky,” he said, adding that he has pursued Noam Chomsky’s views on global connections and interconnected research for many years.

They are also the inevitable requirements and development trends of applied sciences to deal with the existing challenges, he went on.    Noam Chomsky’s Shining Star Achievement in Research Award, part of the 2020 A. Noam Chomsky Global Connections Award, was granted at a ceremony held at the headquarters of the Society of Transnational Academic Researchers (STAR) in the US on December 8 (US time). Bach, who graduated with an excellent doctorate from the University of Alberta, Canada in 2011, is deputy head of the Hanoi Medical University’s Health Economics Department. He was appointed Adjunct Professor at the prestigious John Hopkins University in 2019. In September 2019, the PLoS Biology magazine published a list of the top 100,000 scientists ranked in the most cited group in the world. There were three Vietnamese scientists in the list, including Bach. His writings have been published in prestigious international magazines, including The Lancet, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, JMIR and AIDS and Behaviour. He has also taken part in efforts to develop a network to research global health issues and disease-control policies. In 2018, he was elected a member of the Global Young Academy’s Executive Committee – a network that connects young scientists to solve global problems and encourage young people to do scientific research, especially, young people from developing countries. Also in 2018, he took the role of Secretary-General of the Global Young Vietnamese Intellectuals Network. The network provides opportunities for young Vietnamese intellectuals at home and abroad to contribute their initiatives to national development. Through the network, dozens of research groups have been established and hundreds of proposals and initiatives have been submitted to the country’s leaders for consideration. Previously, Bach was recognised as the youngest associate professor in Vietnam when he was 32 years old in 2016. Receiving the award is not only international recognition of Bach's contributions to scientific research and research cooperation but also a motivation for him to continue spreading the spirit of connection and cooperation to develop young intellectuals in the country and around the world.

Scientific research needs desires

According to Bach, scientific research needs aspirations as well as the mobilisation of all senses so that scientists can understand daily requirements, and their efforts and sacrifice would create widespread social values: for people and for the nation. The will and spirit of Vietnamese have motivated young generations to move forward in any circumstance, he stressed. The scientist said he always stays persistent and tries to seek significance of each job even in the hardest time. For him, the greatest fruit he reaped over the past decade is many of his students confident to become professional researchers, winning high scientific awards and, more importantly, ready to become scientists. Awards would be milestones for scientists but should be neither targets nor destinations, Bach noted. He stressed the need for scientists to continuously challenge themselves, work harder to master science-technology and become “climbers” who will never reach the peak./. Box: Professor Noam Chomsky, 92, is one of the greatest scholars of this era. He is considered the father of modern linguistics and one of the most cited authors alive. He is the author of more than 100 books on linguistics, politics, war and mass media. With Chomsky's tremendous academic and social contributions, Mousumi Mukherjee (Chief Representative of STAR Network in India) asked for permission to use his name to create the A. Noam Chomsky Global Connections Award in October. The award aims to honour the power of human connections and honour individuals who have a profound effect on promoting social and global mobility./.