On May 31, a six-member delegation of Vietnamese MPs headed by Dr. Dinh Xuan Thao (Member of the Committee on Law, President of the Institute for Legislative Studies) visited NARS. The purpose of this visit was to learn about NARS’s roles as a legislative think tank, and to adopt such roles in strengthening organizational capacity of the Vietnamese National Assembly and Institute for Legislative Studies. This is the second such visit of the delegation to NARS since September 2008.

After the NARS Chief’s introduction of NARS and presentation on “Methodological Issues: Difficulties and Dilemmas in NARS research,” the delegation showed great interest in various aspects of the NARS: ▲ Role of NARS as the National Assembly’s main think tank, ▲ Distinctive role of NARS differentiated from the National Assembly Library, ▲ Utilization of pools of outside experts, ▲ Cooperative networks with other domestic and global institutions, and ▲ Organization of seminars and forums.

Chief of NARS (Dr. Lim Seong-ho) invited the delegation to this year’s International Seminar for Parliamentary Research Services. The delegation expressed an interest and gave a positive response. It is expected that this meeting will further consolidate cooperation between the two institutions.