The Phan Chau Trinh Culture Foundation has announced awards for outstanding people in the fields of culture and education, translation, research and Vietnamese studies.

The Phan Chau Trinh Awards 2012 include a culture and education award each to educator Bui Tran Phuong and artist Vu Duc Hieu, a translation award for Chu Tien Anh and Pham Duy Hien, a research award for Vietnamese overseas professor Le Thanh Khoi and a Vietnamese studies award for French professor Philippe Langlet.

Phuong and Hieu are honoured for their contributions to promoting education and preserving Vietnamese Muong ethnic culture.

Artist Hieu is being recognised for the Muong Ethnic Group Cultural Space Museum , which he established in 2007. It is the first private museum in the northern province of Hoa Binh and the only museum in Vietnam devoted to Muong culture.

Phuong is the rector of Hoa Sen University in Ho Chi Minh City which was developed from a vocational school and gathers educators from diverse backgrounds.

She is a core faculty member for SIT (School for International Training) Study Abroad in Vietnam . She has lectured on gender and social change for SIT students and has led interactive discussions between SIT and local students at Hoa Sen University.

Anh and Hien will receive the award for their translation works which have brought human knowledge quintessence to Vietnamese readers.

Khoi is recognised for his research on cultures from the East to the West and Langlet for spending his whole life studying and introducing Vietnamese history and culture.

The Phan Chau Trinh Culture Foundation, run by the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, instituted the awards in 2007.

The awards honour national hero, poet and cultural expert Trinh, a native of central Quang Nam Province .

Born in 1872, Trinh was a reformer who fought in the resistance movement against the French when he was very young. He devoted all of his life to the country's modernisation.

The award ceremony will be held on March 28 in HCM City./.