A total number of 625 Student Creativity Program (PKM) teams from 101 universities in Indonesia participated in a competition to win in the 33rd National Student Scientific Week (PIMNAS), which took place on 26-28 November 2020.
Drg. Henri Susanto, M.Kes., Ph.D., as the Deputy Chairman of the 33rd PIMNAS, stated that the PIMNAS implementation this time was quite distinct from earlier years because this year, the implementation was held during the Covid-19 pandemic. Consequently, all student teams should compete in online competitions. Meantime, the judges conducted an offline assessment at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) campus but still complying with health protocols.
"So, there are 31 presentation classes whose assessment takes place at FEB UGM. At the same time, the poster category will be carried out at GSP UGM. Although these activities will be carried out offline but still, the student team presented online," he explained.
Prof. Dr. Ir. Nuni Gofar, M.S., as the 33rd PIMNAS Secretary-judge, revealed that this year's PIMNAS activity raised the theme entitled Forging a Creative and Independent Generation in the Pandemic Period with Spirit of an Independent Campus employed. There were 2,918 students attending this event, and they were divided into 625 PKM teams from 101 state and private universities in multiple regions in Indonesia. Before entering to the PIMNAS level, all participants must pass through a series of selection processes starting from proposal selection to monitoring and evaluation.
In this year's implementation, there were 57,723 proposals submitted from PKM 5 fields, namely PKM Exact Research and Social Humanities, PKM Entrepreneurship, PKM Community Service, PKM Applied Technology, PKM-Karsa Cipta. Of 3,789 proposals that obtained program implementation grants from the Ministry of Education, 545 of them triumphantly passed to PIMNAS.
On the other hand, from the PKM Written Ideas and PKM Constructive Futuristic Ideas, there were 7,083 proposals submitted, and 436 of them headed to get funding for program implementation. After going through the next selection process, 80 proposals were submitted to PIMNAS.
"As a total, 625 groups compete in PIMNAS from PKM 5 fields and PKM Written Ideas, and PKM Constructive Futuristic Ideas," he said.
In addition, 95 judges will assess this event's competition. Some of 75 judges will carry the assessment offline and the rest of 20 others judging online.
"In this competition, each field will compete for gold, silver, and bronze medals as well as the favorite champion with a total of 217 medals," he explained.
The head of the Working Group for Higher Education at the Puspresnas Kemdikbud RI, Yas Ahmad Adha, stated an increase in the number of PKM teams passed to PIMNAS from year to year. Previously, in 2018 and 2019, 420 PKM teams and 480 PKM teams passed, sequentially. Then, in 2020, even though during a pandemic, there was an increasing number of teams who successfully passed to PIMNAS. In fact, this year, there are 625 PKM teams.
"This is remarkable because in this Covid-19 situation, people commonly only stay at home, and lectures also attend online. However, this is remarkable because the students' creativity is still extraordinary," he explained.
The Sub-Coordinator of Reasoning, Creativity, Interests and Student Talents, Directorate General of Learning and Student Affairs, Fajar Priyautama, also conveyed a similar thing. In this 2020s PIMNAS implementation, PIMNAS has succeeded in obtaining the largest number of proposal titles in recent years. However, due to the current pandemic conditions, the assessment should be different from the common condition. Previously the outputs produced from PKM were in activities, products, and research results. Nevertheless, due to this pandemic condition, the implementation and the outputs emerged in a different form.
"For instance, for Community Service PKM, the output results in the form of a guidebook and PKM Research in the form of a narrative review," he explained.
Author: Ika
Translator: Natasa A