Pursuant to Decision No. 3168/QĐ-BGDĐT dated November 2, 2026, issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, Ho Chi Minh City University of Law (ULAW) has four doctoral programmes included in the officially announced list of domestic doctoral disciplines and training institutions meeting the requirements of Project 89. This development represents a significant opportunity for the University's postgraduate education and further strengthens its capacity to contribute to the advanced training and professional development of highly qualified academic staff, in response to the evolving demands of Vietnamese higher education.
Project 89 was approved by the Prime Minister under Decision No. 89/QĐ-TTg dated January 18, 2019, with the overarching objective of enhancing the competencies and professional capacities of academic staff and administrators at higher education institutions during the 2019–2030 period. A central priority of the Project is to cultivate a highly qualified academic workforce equipped with advanced disciplinary expertise, strong research capabilities, and the capacity to contribute meaningfully to the ongoing reform and improvement of higher education quality.
Through doctoral education and research training, Project 89 seeks to develop a highly skilled academic workforce capable of conducting independent scholarly inquiry, advancing discipline-specific knowledge, and strengthening teaching quality across higher education institutions. Within this framework, the official publication of the list of eligible domestic doctoral disciplines and training institutions constitutes an important component of the regulatory and administrative arrangements governing the Project's implementation.
On November 2, 2026, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Decision No. 3168/QĐ-BGDĐT, announcing the lists of domestic doctoral disciplines and training institutions, together with related lists of overseas training institutions, awards, and international subject rankings meeting the requirements of Project 89. According to the list of domestic doctoral disciplines and training institutions promulgated together with the Decision, Ho Chi Minh City University of Law is included in four disciplines within the field of law: Constitutional and Administrative Law (Programme Code: 9380102); Civil Law and Civil Procedure (Programme Code: 9380103); Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure (Programme Code: 9380104); and Economic Law (Programme Code: 9380107).
These disciplines represent significant areas of legal scholarship, encompassing matters ranging from the organisation and exercise of state power and the protection of the lawful rights and interests of individuals and entities to criminal liability and legal relations arising from economic activities. The inclusion of all four disciplines demonstrates the breadth of ULAW's doctoral training provision under Project 89, reflecting its capacity to accommodate diverse areas of advanced legal inquiry and the specialised research needs of university academics.
Constitutional and Administrative Law addresses fundamental questions concerning the organisation and functioning of the state apparatus, public administration, and the protection of human and citizens' rights. The continuing need for institutional reform, more effective public governance, and the safeguarding of constitutional and legal compliance in the exercise of public authority presents substantial opportunities for both theoretical investigation and practice-oriented legal research.
Civil Law and Civil Procedure encompasses legal relations arising across various dimensions of social life, including property rights, contractual obligations, inheritance, mechanisms for dispute resolution, and the protection of the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organisations. The evolving nature of civil relations, together with the imperative of ensuring consistency in the interpretation and application of the law, continues to generate complex questions requiring rigorous and specialised scholarly examination.
Within Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, scholarly inquiry focuses on the principles governing the determination of criminal liability, mechanisms for addressing criminal conduct, and the protection of human rights throughout criminal proceedings. This field demands rigorous legal reasoning and doctrinal analysis, while also requiring sustained engagement between theoretical scholarship and the practical operation of the criminal justice system.
Meanwhile, Economic Law encompasses legal issues arising from investment, business operations, commercial transactions, and economic regulation. The continuing evolution of markets, deepening international economic integration, and emergence of innovative business models have given rise to increasingly complex legal questions requiring systematic scholarly investigation, critical analysis, and theoretically grounded interpretation.
Together, these four doctoral disciplines establish important intellectual connections between public and private law, as well as between foundational legal theory and the challenges emerging from contemporary legal practice. They also offer considerable potential to contribute directly to teaching, research, and scholarly exchange across the higher education sector, particularly within institutions specialising in advanced legal education and research.
For Ho Chi Minh City University of Law, the inclusion of four doctoral disciplines in the list announced under Project 89 creates favourable conditions for further consolidating its postgraduate education capabilities and contributing to the development of university academics with advanced legal expertise and specialised research competencies.
The significance of doctoral education also lies in its capacity to establish meaningful connections between scholarly research and teaching practice. Findings generated through advanced legal research can serve as valuable academic resources, enriching curricula, enhancing the quality of research supervision, and fostering sustained intellectual exchange among successive generations of lecturers and researchers.
This relationship is particularly important in the legal field, where developments in judicial adjudication, public administration, civil transactions, and commercial activities continually generate new questions that require further scholarly investigation and the refinement of legal theory. Strengthening the relationship between doctoral education and advanced research therefore contributes to the development of sound scholarly foundations for examining complex legal issues, clarifying legal doctrines, and informing processes of legislative development and the interpretation and application of the law.
Furthermore, ULAW's inclusion in four doctoral disciplines on the Ministry of Education and Training's announced list creates opportunities to strengthen academic engagement with lecturers, researchers, and doctoral candidates from other higher education institutions. Through doctoral training and collaborative research activities, the exchange of knowledge, sharing of professional expertise, and development of new research directions can be further encouraged, thereby expanding opportunities for academic cooperation within the legal field.
From a long-term institutional development perspective, postgraduate education, particularly at the doctoral level, remains an essential component of efforts to improve the quality of human resources in the legal profession and academia. Scholarly works of theoretical and practical significance, together with a highly qualified academic workforce possessing advanced disciplinary expertise, have the potential to generate enduring contributions to legal education, research, and professional practice.
With four doctoral disciplines included in the list promulgated under Decision No. 3168/QĐ-BGDĐT, Ho Chi Minh City University of Law is well positioned to further advance its postgraduate education and specialised research activities within the framework of Project 89. This development provides an important opportunity for ULAW to build upon its established strengths in legal education, contribute to the development of a highly qualified university teaching workforce, and enhance the quality of legal research personnel, thereby responding to the increasingly specialised and demanding requirements of Vietnam's higher education sector.
Prepared by: Department of Communications and Enterprise Relations