Vietnam National University (Ho Chi Minh City)

Vietnam National Univeristy (Ho Chi Minh City) is one of the two national universities intended to be leading multidisciplinary and multisectoral institutions which enjoy extra autonomy and report directly to the prime minister rather than the ministry of education. The second university is Vietnam National University, Hanoi.

The university was formed in the city formerly known as Saigon, through the merger of nine separate institutions in 1995. It operates on a scale befitting what has been called Vietnam’s "Emerging Megacity".

In 2018 it enrolled more than 60,000 students and the following year more than 36,000 took the academic performance test for aspirant undergraduates.

The campus in the suburb of Thu Duc was envisaged by the national government as an "innovation district" and was driven by the university. It includes the Hi-Tech Park and the Financial Services Trade Centre and was completed in 2013. There is a satellite campus in Ben Tre province.

It proclaims a vision "to build a university system among the best in Asia, a convergence of Vietnamese science, technology, culture and knowledge". Its seven universities include the University of Technology which traces roots back as far as the formation of the College of Civil Engineering in 1911.

There are 10 faculties of engineering and the Technology Management Centre, as well as National Key Laboratories in polymer and composites and digital control and systems engineering. The university was ranked fourth in the Nature Index for Vietnam for 2018-9.

In 2019 student volunteer campaigns enabled the treatment of 300 people in the My Binh border commune. A Green Summer project involving 1,000 students planned to build two bridges in Ben Tre province and concretise 10 rural roads with a length of more than 10km and connect 15km of electrical wiring.