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wide gap between the ideas of local researchers and demands of industrial firms has pushed the results of academic research on the shelf as they cannot be transformed into marketable goods.

Narrowing this gap may be the main challenge in successfully bringing Indonesia’s greatest minds together.

According to Gadjah Mada University (UGM) business development and incubation director Hargo Utomo, most researchers wish to retain independence in developing products, and often disregard the commercial aspect.

“Researchers want to make new innovations, but they rarely care about whether [the product] is marketable,” Hargo told The Jakarta Post. “They [...] just don’t think it’s their responsibility to develop a market-oriented product.”

Their inability to negotiate with industrial users could also pose as a hindrance, he added.

A UGM researcher, for instance, has developed a much lighter, low-pressured fuel storage tank for compressed natural gas (CNG), a cheaper alternative to fossil fuel. However, lengthy negotiations with the industry have held it back from being widely adopted.

Such cases are rampant across different fields, such as medicine, engineering, food and agriculture.

Acknowledging this problem, the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry has been trying to bridge researchers’ interests and market demand.

Among other steps, the ministry has been building a number of science and techno parks (STP), offering incentives, facilitating patent registration and matching researchers with investors.

As many as 60 out of 100 science and techno parks planned within the 2014 to 2019 period have been completed, and they comply with the national research master plan covering 10 main research fields ranging from food and agriculture to maritime affairs.

The ministry also offers research grants ranging from Rp 25 million (US$1,874) to Rp 1.6 billion for each publication, prototype and form of innovation.

But beyond these improvements, a change of mindset among researchers is perhaps the most important.

“Researchers need to change their mindset to become more market-oriented and allow their research products to be more applicable in line with market demand,” said Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister M. Nasir.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) deputy chairman Bambang Subiyanto shares a similar view, saying that beyond the necessary infrastructure and incentives to support innovation, the real problem most often lay in researchers’ lack of market orientation, in addition to lack of knowledge of the application of their research products.

At science exhibitions, for example, researchers frequently face difficulties answering questions on the potential investment required to produce their invention at a massive scale, he added.

To address this issue, LIPI has organized a number of courses on technology and business development for its researchers. It has also provided training on the patenting process. Since 2001, LIPI has registered 521 patents.

The head of the Industry Ministry’s industrial research and development agency, Ngakan Timur Antara, said researchers should also understand that investors wanted to achieve faster, cheaper and risk-free production processes.

“These investors must be pragmatic. Who wants to burn their money [on research for unusable products]?” he said. (dis)