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t the age of 60, Diah Asri Erowati is still a spirited scientist whose head is full of project ideas in line with her expertise in animal feeding technology.

Diah has set her sights on a project to process waste from the Kramat Jati Market, one of most waste-producing markets in Jakarta, into animal feed.

That plan, however, is not her top concern right now, as she currently faces job uncertainty following a new retirement rule set by the government earlier this year.

“The project can wait, but this injustice cannot,” said Diah, a senior researcher at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT).

Diah is one of 556 senior government researchers who face unexpected retirement in the next two years following the enactment of Government Regulation No. 11/2017, which obliges any civil servant below the madya, or middle-high, level to bid goodbye to their job when they turn 60.

The new regulation on civil service management annuls the retirement age of 65 years set in the previous regulation of 2014.

While the 2017 regulation aims to make the bureaucracy more efficient, it is seen by researchers as an “unjust” regulation that jeopardizes not only their professional careers but also the country’s ambition to excel in science.

This year alone, 178 researchers approaching the age of 60 are due to retire as a consequence of the new retirement provision. The number may be low on paper, but these researchers are people with unrivaled competency and experience in their respective fields.

“At 60, researchers are in fact still at their prime,” said Bambang Subiyanto, acting head of the government-owned Indonesian Science Institute (LIPI).

Madya-level scientists were also considered an integral element in research and development activities at various state agencies and were leading hundreds of research projects in their respective organizations, said Bambang, who is also the head of the Indonesian Scientists Union (Himpenindo).

The 556 soon-to-retire madya researchers are scattered across 42 state agencies, not only within research bodies like LIPI, the BPPT and the National Nuclear Energy Agency (Batan), but also in numerous ministries. With 325 madya-level researchers, the Agriculture Ministry is the organization most affected by the new retirement bar.

“They are productive researchers and the backbone of agricultural research and development to create technological innovation and excellent seeds,” said Muhammad Syakir, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s research and development agency.

According to LIPI, Indonesia currently has around 9,000 full-time researchers, not including university lecturers, or around 40 researchers per million citizens. Senior LIPI officials and even Research, Technology and Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir himself have admitted that that figure was extremely low compared to other countries.

Nasir has said the number has to increase and has set a target for Indonesia to become a scientific champion producing innovation to developing sectors such as agriculture, pharmaceuticals and nanotechnology by 2045.

But the impending wave of forced retirements, Bambang said, would eventually hamper efforts to meet the target, while challenges, particularly poor research funding allotted in the state budget, continued to linger.

“[The regulation] cuts the number of researchers at a time when we are [already] left behind by many countries. I can’t fathom how this policy was laid out,” said Wendy Zulfikar, 59, a senior engine and transportation researcher at the BPPT.

In response to the new retirement provision, Himpenindo plans to file a judicial review with the Supreme Court to challenge what it perceives as a policy that “harms more than supports scientific activities”, ordering Wendy to lead the organization’s team in the case.

One of the arguments to be presented, Wendy said, was that the retirement provision contravened the principles of the merit system, which in fact is adopted by the regulation on the bureaucracy.