UGM won the Indonesia Managing Higher Education for Relevancy & Efficiency (IMHERE) grant, B2C component of the Directorate General of Higher Education amounting to 30 billion rupiah and at least 8% of assistance funds to strengthen the three existing centers of excellence (CoE). The contract has been signed by the Executive Director of UGM IMHERE, Dr. Cahyono Agus, starting from October 15, 2009, for a period of three years.
The proposal entitled "Education for Sustainable Development to World Class Research University" is intended to strengthen the center of excellence "Biodiversity of Tropical Orchid" at the Faculty of Biology, "Herbal Medicine" at the Faculty of Pharmacy, and "Reduction Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD)" at the Faculty of Forestry, which also involve KP4, LPPM, and LPPT, and support from relevant directorates in UGM.
Agus Cahyono expected this grant can have better impact on improving the institutional quality through the ability of all stakeholders in the learning implementation and devotion to community-based research. "Improved research quality, management, cooperation, and social responsibility are clear, firm, and measured outstanding achievements," he said, Friday (30/10), at UGM.
Agus said that with the tropical orchids’ center of excellence, tropical mega-diversity will be more valuable, appreciated and beneficial to society, nation and the world. It is because the center of excellence is also used as medium of education, research, service, and institutional development.
Meanwhile, the REDD center of excellence can be major contributor in responding to global warming through sustainable development that has economic, environmental, social and cultural perspectives of Indonesian characteristics. Finally, herbal center of excellence is expected to be a major empowerment in the utilization of abundant tropical biological resources as efficacious and safe natural remedy.