A delegation of officials from Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, the primary institution for training the country’s civil service elite, signed a partnership agreement with three USC schools March 2 to facilitate research, student exchanges and faculty collaboration.

Keck School of Medicine of USC Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, MD, MBA, USC Gould Dean Andrew Guzman, JD, PhD, and USC Price School of Public Policy Dean Jack H. Knott, PhD, signed the memorandum of understanding, signaling continued collaboration and commitment between USC and Vietnam.

“We are delighted to deepen our partnership with the Ho Chi Minh Academy and extend our work together,” said Anthony Bailey, EdD, MBA, USC’s vice president of strategic and global initiatives, who also signed the agreement.

The official partnership is a manifestation of both institutions’ interests in education, research, training and development. Future collaboration will include joint education and research, visiting scholar exchanges and conferences.

The Hoh Chi Minh National Academy of Politics is the training center for mid- and high-ranking leaders, managers and policymakers of the Vietnam Communist Party, the State and socio-political organizations. It is also a national center for political theory research directly run by the Party Central Committee and the government.

In 2015, USC Price doctoral student Mylinh Ngo Huang earned a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to spend 10 months researching urban adaptation to climate change in Vietnam.

In 2014, Huang, USC Price Professor Eric Heikkila, PhD, and Sofia Gruskin, JD, director of the Program on Global Health & Human Rights at the USC Institute for Global Health, met with Ho Chi Minh National Academy representatives in Hanoi to lead a workshop in creating a framework to address climate change. Gruskin, who introduced the Academy to USC, has been working with the organization since 2005 on development, health and human rights projects.

by Larissa Puro