Regulations on research approval and personal data protection change over time and differ between countries — always check the current requirements applying to both sides.
This is the part most often deferred in international projects, and the one that cannot be fixed later. Data collected outside an approved protocol is generally unusable for publication, and journals will ask.
Approval is usually needed on both sides
For research involving human participants or personal data, you will generally need approval from an ethics committee at the Vietnamese institution as well as your own.
These are parallel processes; one does not substitute for the other. Assuming your home approval covers work conducted in Vietnam is a common and consequential mistake.
Allow weeks to months, and expect possible requests to revise the protocol. Do not schedule fieldwork before approval is in hand — retroactive approval is not available.
Ask your partner early who submits, what the committee requires, and whether a local principal investigator must be named.
Consent documents
Information sheets and consent forms must be in Vietnamese and written at a level participants actually understand — not a direct translation of academic English.
They must state the purpose, what participants will do, the time involved, risks and benefits, who will see the data, how long it is kept, and the right to withdraw at any time.
If data will be shared with your institution abroad, or deposited publicly, that must be covered by the consent. Consent obtained for one purpose does not extend to another.
Your local partner should lead on drafting these documents. They know how the language will be read in context, which is not something a translation service can supply.
Personal data
General principles that apply anywhere: collect the minimum needed; remove identifiers as early as possible; keep any linking key separately and secured; restrict access; and have a deletion plan consistent with what participants were told.
Cross-border transfer of personal data is regulated and should be checked before, not after, collection — particularly for health data and anything re-identifiable.
The simplest way to reduce risk: keep the source data in Vietnam and transfer only anonymised or aggregated versions.
The local team's continuing rights
State explicitly in the agreement that the Vietnamese team retains access to the data and may use it for further work, including student theses.
This is frequently omitted, with the result that the team who collected the data loses the ability to use it. Funders increasingly treat this as a marker of an inequitable partnership.
Specify for each side: which purposes are permitted, when notification or consent of the other party is required, and for how long any restriction applies.
Journal data-sharing requirements
Many journals now require data availability or an explanation of why data cannot be shared. For personal data, a valid restriction exists, but it must be stated clearly and an aggregated version is often expected.
Prepare from the start: maintain an anonymised version suitable for sharing, with a codebook describing each variable. Doing this at the end is much harder.
Checklist before collection begins
Valid ethics approval from both sides.
Vietnamese-language information and consent documents, approved by the committee.
A data management plan: storage location, access, anonymisation, retention and deletion.
An agreement covering data ownership, use and transfer, including the local team's continuing rights.
If personal data will leave Vietnam, confirmation that the applicable transfer rules have been checked.
Is our institutional ethics approval enough?
Generally not for work conducted in Vietnam. Expect to need approval from a Vietnamese committee as well; ask your partner about the applicable process early.
Can anonymised data be collected without consent?
Consent is still required for the original collection. Anonymisation reduces risk in storage and sharing but does not replace consent.
Can we store the data on our institutional cloud?
Check the transfer and storage rules that apply. For re-identifiable data, the safer arrangement is to keep source data in Vietnam and share only anonymised extracts.
Who owns the data after the project ends?
Whatever the agreement says — which is why it must be written at the start, including the local team's right to continue using it for their own research and student work.
