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USAID, ministry organize conference on agricultural innovation
Courtesy of US EmbassyThe United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry’s research and public service directorate recently held a Sustainable Higher Educational Research Alliance (SHERA) conference on agricultural innovation at the Bogor Agricultural University in West Java
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Courtesy of US Embassy
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Research, Technology and Higher Education Ministry’s research and public service directorate recently held a Sustainable Higher Educational Research Alliance (SHERA) conference on agricultural innovation at the Bogor Agricultural University in West Java.
The conference was inaugurated on Tuesday by the ministry’s research and public service director, Ocky Karna Radjasa, as well as USAID acting director David Hoffman. It was a collaborative partnership among selected universities from Indonesia and the US under the ministry’s supervision.
The conference served as a platform in which different stakeholders in the agricultural sector — governmental institutions, research and development organizations, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and donors — had the opportunity to explore potential partnerships for research studies funding.
The platform also seeks to facilitate an exchange of knowledge in the field of sustainable agricultural technology innovations, focusing on clean water accessibility, food security and renewable energy. It will then submit the innovation blueprints from the research studies to the private sector to get the necessary funding.
“The United States, through USAID, has a long history in supporting the development of the sciences, technology and innovative research studies in Indonesia. We are proud to continue this commitment through the SHERA program,” Hoffman said.
The SHERA program seeks to boost the capacity of Indonesian higher education institutions, enabling them to find solutions for urgent developmental challenges in Indonesia.
Besides organizing multistakeholder engagement platforms, the partnership also supports five centers for collaborative research in the fields of the sciences, technology and innovation in several prestigious Indonesian state-owned universities: the University of Indonesia (UI), the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), Padjadjaran University, Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and the Bogor Agricultural University itself.
USAID has also helped 17 universities around Indonesia to form research partnerships with eight US schools: the University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Denver, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Rhode Island, Mississippi State University, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Florida and Savannah State University.
“The private sector tends to want to finance only ready-made innovation [blueprints], which are ready to be marketed and commercialized. It becomes our responsibility to direct and supervise the researchers, so they will be able to sell their research-based innovations to the private sector to get the necessary funding,” Ocky said.
“The private sector hasn’t optimized its resources yet in turning these research studies into sources of bigger innovations capable of generating bigger economic gains as well as prosperity for Indonesia and other countries in the region and, of course, the globe,” Hoffman added.
