Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV; ) is a public research university and state think tank in Láng, Hanoi, Vietnam, operating under the direct authority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The university was established in 1957 during the Vietnam War by the Standing Committee of the Government Council of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Acting on the urgent geopolitical needs of the Cold War, the institution was established as the nation's vanguard training ground for revolutionary cadres following authorization by Prime Minister Phạm Văn Đồng.
It is the only institution in Vietnam dedicated specifically to training diplomats, and it combines this teaching role with a mandate, unusual among Vietnamese universities, to produce strategic research and policy advice for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Government of Vietnam on international relations, foreign policy and, since 2012, the South China Sea.
Founded on 17 June 1959 as the School of Diplomacy, the institution has been reorganised and renamed several times, passing through incarnations as a faculty of a merged economics-and-trade university, an independent diplomatic and foreign-trade cadre school, the Institute of International Relations and the Academy of International Relations before being upgraded to its present name and status by prime minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng in 2008.
DAV occupies a single campus in Hanoi's densely populated Láng neighborhood and enrolls close to 6,000 students across bachelor's, master's, doctoral and joint international degree programs, with the academy itself reporting more than 7,000 people enrolled if short-course and continuing-education participants are included.
Because of its dual teaching-and-research mandate, DAV is regularly counted, alongside a small number of other Vietnamese institutes, among the country's internationally recognised policy think tanks, having been ranked 40th among the top think tanks of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and 40th among the world's best government-affiliated think tanks, in the Global Go To Think Tank Index compiled by the University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program. Many of Vietnam's most senior diplomats, including successive foreign ministers, are alumni of the academy.
History
Founding and early reorganisations, 1959-1967 In the years after the 1954 Geneva Accords divided Vietnam, the socialist government in Hanoi sought to build a professional corps of diplomats and foreign-trade officials for the newly reconstituted state.
A first short course for diplomatic cadres was overseen by Deputy Foreign Minister Ung Văn Khiêm, with Đinh Nho Liêm as his deputy, before the effort was placed on a permanent institutional footing. On 17 June 1959 the Standing Committee of the Government Council issued a decision establishing the Trường Ngoại giao (School of Diplomacy) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After 1965, the university spent the height of the Vietnam War operating north of the capital in the village of Thù Lâm in Thái Nguyên, primarily out of disguised bamboo classrooms. adapting its governance to survive intense aerial bombardments.
The young school's independence was short-lived: on 28 July 1960 it was merged into the University of Economics and Finance (today the National Economics University) as a Faculty of International Relations, comprising a diplomacy department and a foreign-trade department, even though the faculty continued to be staffed and directed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In January 1963 the faculty was again separated out, this time to re-form the Trường Cán bộ Ngoại giao - Ngoại thương (School of Diplomatic and Foreign Trade Cadres), directly under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
After 1965, the university spent the height of the Vietnam War operating north of the capital in the village of Thù Lâm in Thái Nguyên, primarily out of disguised bamboo classrooms, adapting its governance to survive intense aerial bombardments.
The combined school was in turn split in 1967 into two independent institutions, the Trường Đại học Ngoại giao (University of Diplomacy) and the Trường Đại học Ngoại thương (University of Foreign Trade), the latter evolving into today's Foreign Trade University.
From the mid-1960s to the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, senior revolutionary diplomats served as the university's chief operational leaders. Following the end of the war in 1975, the institution returned fully to its original urban campus, appointing administrators who focused exclusively on global integration rather than strictly wartime political mobilization.
Around this time, the university was run in succession by Võ Anh Tuấn and Trần Hồng Hải, both serving as deputy rector with delegated authority to head the school, before Lê Tân (born Trần Hữu Cừ) was appointed rector in 1971, a post he held until 1980.
Institute of International Relations, 1977-1992 On 11 March 1977 the Government Council issued Decision No. 60/CP establishing the Viện Quan hệ Quốc tế (Institute of International Relations), a separate research-oriented body. A decade later, on 19 May 1987, the Council of Ministers issued Decree No. 78-HĐBT merging the University of Diplomacy into the Institute of International Relations, creating a single Ministry of Foreign Affairs body that combined teaching and strategic research under one roof. Võ Đông Giang and then Phạm Bình headed the merged institute during this period.
Academy of International Relations, 1992-2008 On 1 August 1992 the Chairman of the Council of Ministers issued Decision No. 279-CT renaming the body the Học viện Quan hệ Quốc tế (Academy of International Relations). The Academy remained under the direct management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its overall direction, while following the Ministry of Education and Training's regulations for degree-granting institutions. Directors of the Academy during this period included Đào Huy Ngọc, Vũ Dương Huân and Trịnh Quang Thanh, with Nguyễn Quang Chiến serving as acting director at one point; Dương Văn Quảng became director in the 2000s and would go on to lead the institution through its 2008 transformation.
Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, 2008-present Responding to the country's deepening international integration after its 2007 accession to the World Trade Organization, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 82/2008/QĐ-TTg on 23 June 2008, upgrading the Academy of International Relations and renaming it the Học viện Ngoại giao - the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam - with the organisational rank of a department-general (cấp Tổng cục), a status that gave it greater administrative and budgetary autonomy than an ordinary Ministry department. On 15 June 2009 the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 821/QĐ-TTg authorising DAV to award doctoral degrees, in international relations and international law.
The Academy's research role was formalised and expanded over the following years. Decision No. 82/2008/QĐ-TTg had already provided for a strategic-studies institute, which opened as the Institute for Diplomatic Strategy Studies in 2008; a second research institute, the Institute of East Sea, was created under Decision No. 29/2012/QĐ-TTg of 12 July 2012 to study the South China Sea disputes. A dedicated undergraduate and postgraduate Training Department was established by Decision No. 75/2014/QĐ-TTg of 24 December 2014, and the Academy's functions and structure were restated by Decision No. 07/2019/QĐ-TTg of 15 February 2019.
Under directors Đặng Đình Quý (who left in January 2016 to become a Deputy Foreign Minister) and Nguyễn Vũ Tùng, and acting director Phạm Lan Dung from 2020, the Academy expanded its international partnerships and joint degree programmes and, from 2020 to 2021, carried out a roughly VND 200 billion (about US$8 million) modernisation of its Hanoi campus.
A comprehensive reorganisation followed Decision No. 08/2024/QĐ-TTg, signed by Deputy Prime Minister Trần Lưu Quang on 28 June 2024 and effective from 15 August 2024, which restructured the Academy into eleven constituent units and, for the first time, formally established an Academy Council (Hội đồng Học viện) as its governance body.
DAV marked its 65th anniversary in December 2024 with a ceremony attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Bùi Thanh Sơn, at which the Academy also opened a "Traditions Room" documenting its institutional history. Nguyễn Hùng Sơn, previously a deputy director and head of the Institute of East Sea, was named acting director on 29 November 2024 and confirmed as director on 29 May 2025, with Deputy Prime Minister Bùi Thanh Sơn describing the Academy as being in a period of "strong movement toward autonomy" in its teaching and finances.
Campus DAV occupies a single campus at 69 Chùa Láng street, in what is now Láng ward (formerly Láng Thượng ward of Đống Đa district), Hanoi, where it has been based since the institution's modern re-establishment. Unlike Vietnam's larger comprehensive universities, DAV has no satellite campuses; the Academy has stated that it has no branch or teaching site in Ho Chi Minh City or elsewhere.
Between 2020 and 2021 the Academy carried out a campus modernisation programme costing approximately VND 200 billion, financed as part of a broader push to upgrade facilities across the institution. The centrepiece of the project was a new multi-purpose teaching building of 2,040 square metres, comprising seven storeys above ground and one basement level and divided into teaching, office and conference zones; the Academy's five-storey library building was refurbished at the same time so that its exterior would match the new building's architecture. The renovation also added conference and seminar rooms, expanded physical-education facilities, refurbished student housing, and created dedicated multimedia rooms and classrooms for the Academy's high-quality and internationally linked degree programmes.
Organisation
Governance DAV is a public non-business unit (đơn vị sự nghiệp công lập) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with its own legal status, its own bank accounts, and the right to use a seal bearing the national emblem.
Since the 2024 reorganisation, the Academy has been formally governed by an Academy Council (Hội đồng Học viện), which acts as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' representative body inside the institution; the Council and its chair are recognised by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and are accountable to the Minister. Day-to-day management is exercised by a Directorate (Ban Giám đốc) consisting of a director and up to three deputy directors, all appointed and dismissed by the Minister. As of 2025 the Directorate comprised Director Nguyễn Hùng Sơn and Deputy Directors Nguyễn Thị Thìn, Nguyễn Thị Lan Anh and Nguyễn Mạnh Đông. Phạm Lan Dung, who had served as acting director from 2020, was subsequently named standing vice-chair of the Academy Council; she was separately elected president of the Asian Society of International Law for 2023-2025, becoming the first Vietnamese scholar to hold that post.