Search for research group leaders, senior faculty and academic leadership for universities, research institutes and R&D centres in Vietnam.
A senior research appointment rarely fails because no one could find the right person. It fails because that person was never approached properly, or approached at a moment they couldn't consider it, or approached in a way that forced them to decline just to protect their current position.
Why this is a different problem
In a narrow field, the list of people worth considering usually already exists in colleagues' heads. The difficulty isn't finding names — it's three other things.
Access. The person you want is almost always mid-programme, supervising students, and attached to a group by name. A conversation that leaks can damage that standing. In a small community, a careless approach is remembered for a long time — and it doesn't just cost one search, it can close off access to that whole group afterward.
Timing. Funding cycles, the academic calendar and obligations to current students determine when someone can genuinely consider a move. The right person at the wrong moment is still a no.
Decision-makers. Hiring is usually done by a committee, not a manager. A profile has to hold up when read by people who've never spoken to the candidate, often applying different criteria from each other.
How we approach
One approach, made privately, with enough information for the person to decide right away whether they want to continue the conversation: what the role is, who it reports to, what's funding it and for how long, the group and research infrastructure already in place, teaching load, and why the position is open.
We say what's uncertain too. If funding is confirmed for three years with renewal contingent on a mid-term review, we say so in the first conversation — not once an offer is being negotiated. Someone who leaves a stable position for a role they misunderstood tends to leave again within two years, and both sides lose.
No candidate information goes to the client before the candidate has agreed to it.
What we read
Publication count is the easiest thing to count and the least it tells you. We read:
Author position and venue — first, last or middle authorship signals the real role in the work; where it's published signals who's actually reading it.
Who keeps citing it, and how — cited as background, or as a result others are building directly on.
Funding secured — scale, source, and more importantly, under what role, and whether it was renewed after the first review.
Students supervised — where they went after graduating. One of the most honest signals of leadership ability.
For roles at the university–industry intersection — whether the work left the lab: patents licensed, processes transferred, partnerships still running once seed funding ended.
The group after they left — whether it kept producing.
That last one usually tells you the most.
The context these roles are appearing in
A tier of private universities and internationally-partnered institutions has reached the point of needing real research capability, not just teaching capacity — with the budget and autonomy to hire at the level they need. At the same time, public universities face growing pressure on international publication metrics and are changing how they hire, pay and retain research staff.
More significantly: domestic and FDI corporate R&D centres are now hiring from the same pool of PhD-level candidates, with faster decision cycles and often higher pay. Universities are no longer only competing with each other.
The pool of overseas Vietnamese academics returning is real and growing, but this group asks specific questions before accepting: what research infrastructure already exists, whether funding is allocated or competed for, what studentship capacity looks like, and whether the institution's commitment will outlast the person who recruited them. If a client doesn't have answers to these yet, the search stalls at the first conversation — so we ask before we start.
Finally, international joint-degree programmes and branch campuses in Vietnam typically use their partner institution's title system rather than Vietnam's — so a role here may not map cleanly onto any familiar rank. We have to establish the position's real level first, then translate clearly between the two systems when explaining it to candidates, rather than using a generic title that each side reads differently.
Roles we search for
Research leadership
Group leaders, institute and centre directors, heads of key laboratories. Judged by whether the research programme holds up and keeps producing after they've built it.
Academic leadership
Deans, programme chairs, research chairs. Requires being able to do the research and build the team — two abilities that don't always travel together, and most failures in this group come from testing only the first.
Senior faculty with a research profile
Associate and senior lecturers for programmes building research capability, where the hire has to teach while establishing a research direction from scratch.
University–industry intersection
Technology transfer directors, heads of corporate research, university–industry partnership leads. The fastest-growing and hardest-to-fill group — it needs someone who can read academic work and understand commercial constraints, when most candidates are only strong in one.
What we say no to
Purely teaching-focused appointments. The institution's own hiring is usually faster and cheaper — we say so rather than take the mandate.
Positions where funding hasn't been confirmed. We won't bring someone out of a stable role into a position that might not exist in eighteen months.
Hiring to fill a short-term publication quota. This rarely retains anyone, and the cost lands on both the institution and the person hired.
If you're considering a role in one of these groups, a few lines is enough to start. We come back within two working days, even when the answer is that we're not the right fit.