RECONFIGURING THE JOURNAL ECOLOGICAL CHAIN IN VIETNAM: AN OPEN SCIENCE–DRIVEN GOVERNANCE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Vietnam’s scholarly journals sit at the intersection of national research evaluation, institutional capacity constraints, and a rapidly changing global publishing environment. While “open science” is often discussed through the lenses of open access or open data, its practical consequences in Vietnam are better understood by examining how it reshapes the journal ecological chain—the interconnected actors, infrastructures, and value flows that move research outputs from production to dissemination and reuse. Building on ecological-chain thinking that conceptualizes journals as part of an end-to-end knowledge system spanning producers, consumers, and “decomposers” (e.g., indexing, archiving, and publishing platforms), this paper offers a Vietnam-focused governance analysis that goes beyond descriptive mapping. We develop a conceptual framework to (i) map the Vietnamese journal ecological chain and its value exchanges, (ii) diagnose governance bottlenecks exposed by open science practices, and (iii) propose a staged, open science–driven reconfiguration strategy compatible with Vietnam’s legal, infrastructural, and academic culture conditions. The analysis highlights four governance frictions: incentive misalignment driven by index-based evaluation, fragmented platform interoperability, uneven quality and integrity assurance, and financially fragile publishing operations. We argue that sustainable transformation requires governance by design: interoperable infrastructure (DOI/ORCID/metadata), integrity-by-default standards, incentive reform aligned with responsible metrics, and shared service models that reduce duplicated costs across journals. The proposed roadmap provides actionable pathways for journals, universities, funders, and regulators to coordinate reforms while protecting local-language scholarship and strengthening Vietnam’s international publishing visibility.