Governing Research in Indonesia

The establishment of Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in 2021 was intended to address issues related to Indonesia’s research ecosystem. Officially, BRIN has three mandates: integrate research and innovation resources (human, infrastructure, budget); create an open (inclusive) and collaborative global standard research ecosystem; and establish the foundation for a strong and sustained research and innovation-based economy. In its first two years, BRIN absorbed human resources from five research institutions (BPPT, BATAN, LAPAN, LIPI and the Ministry of Research and Technology) and researchers from more than forty research units in various ministries and other government institutions. Overall, BRIN now has around eleven thousand researchers and four thousand support staff. However, only around Rp7 trillion from the expected Rp26 trillion of national research funds previously scattered in various research units or institutions and ministries were successfully allocated to BRIN’s 2023 annual budget. Thus, government research funding shrank after the merger to about only 30 per cent of its pre-BRIN level. Since it was established, BRIN has struggled with its internal consolidation and with the governance of research. One of the most controversial issues was the integration of Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology to become one of eighty-five research centres within BRIN. Politics was dominant in its early stages. In the process, old issues of academic bureaucratization, management issues, and old habits and mentalities, persisted for BRIN. Now, with the re-establishment of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, and Technology under Prabowo’s government, some overlaps have appeared between this ministry and the roles and responsibilities of BRIN. This development poses both new as well as old and familiar challenges for the coordination and management of research and innovation in the country.