Seven universities, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Universitas Indonesia, Institut Pertanian Bogor, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Universitas Bangka Belitung, Universitas Negeri Gorontalo, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Gorontalo have agreed to establish Centers for Collaborative Research (CCR) together. CCR that involves University of Colorado at Boulder, U.S.A., is a programme of Sustainable Higher Education Research Alliances (SHERA), a collaboration between Research, Technology and Higer Education Minister and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UGM’s Centre for Energy Studies.
The seven universities will collaborate for a duration of four years in education, research, and community service, especially on areas of renewable energy, environment, and maritime affairs.
Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Panut Mulyono, M.Eng., D.Eng, appreciated the parties for the cooperation to establish the Center for Development of Sustainable Region (CDSR). They will conduct prestigious research.
“I would like to extend appreciation to the USAID for having approved the proposal on research in three main areas, renewable energy, environment, and maritime affairs. The funding like this will be useful to the universities for institutional capacity improvement,” he said in the Multimedia Room on Wednesday (13/9).
The Rector hoped the research would produce good research and publication. Included in the goals of collaboration are to produce technology, publication, and patent.
He said higher education has now moved towards high entrepreunership spirit. So, much of the research can go downstream to generate products that can help address national problems.
"Formerly, we were more on teaching university, moving towards research university, but now we’re shifting towards research university plus enterpreneurhip spirit. We hope the research products can help address problems on the field, whether in energy or environment, generating solutions,” he said.
Jalu Cahyanto, representative from USAID, shared the hopes. In his opinion, SHERA is one programme of the USAID to support government programme in science and technology development as well as innovation through Indonesian universities.
"This is an important moment for us, particularly the university partners of SHERA programme . I wish this collaboration will produce publication, improving the capacities of researchers, and it will enable research as well as women’s participation at higher education,” said Jalu Cahyanto.