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Universitas Airlangga

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, President Joko Widodo used National Awakening Day to launch 55 medical devices from a consortium of Indonesian researchers. With the title "????????????????????????????????????????????? ??? ...

It's no coincidence that the 112th commemoration of National Awakening Day highlights the health sector. In addition to Indonesia's struggle to control the Covid-19 pandemic, National Awakening Day coincides with the birth of Boedi Oetomo, which is deeply rooted in medicine. Initiated by Dr. Wahidin Soedirohoesodo, chaired by Dr. Soetomo, its board is dominated by students and medical alumni of STOVIA (the School of Education for Native Indies Doctors) in Batavia.

The President's hope for a revival of Indonesian innovation aligns with the Onward Indonesia Cabinet's focus on transforming the economy, shifting from dependence on natural resources to modern, competitive manufacturing and services with high added value. It's no surprise that cabinet meetings have been held repeatedly to accelerate innovative and applicable research. Despite initial skepticism, COVID-19 has spurred researchers to create innovative medical devices, as they are scarce and expensive on the global market.

As a first step toward realizing national independence in the healthcare sector (over 90% of Indonesia imports raw materials for medicines and medical devices), the efforts of the researchers involved in the consortium mentioned above are certainly commendable. The next question is how can we optimize existing research findings to support Indonesia's independence in the healthcare sector (and other strategic sectors)?

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The latest report ??? ... (GII) #85 (unchanged from the previous year). Other ASEAN members have higher positions: Singapore (#8), Malaysia (#35), Vietnam (#42), Thailand (#43), the Philippines (#54), and Brunei Darussalam (#71).

The government has allocated Rp 27.1 trillion in research funds, spread across 81 ministries/institutions (K/L). However, only 13 of these K/L conduct research, development, and utilization activities. This amount is relatively small compared to neighboring countries, where Malaysia and Thailand allocate +1% of gross domestic product (GDP); while Indonesia has allocated only 0.1% in the last 20 years. Developed countries, on average, allocate 2% to 4.5% of their GDP. This fact indicates that the R&D budget to GDP is positively correlated with national progress.

What is interesting is that the budget allocation for ????&???? in developed countries is not only from the state, but the industry is actively developing the results of basic research that has been funded by the state (especially by universities). According to the 2019 GII, several companies have very large ????&???? ???????????????????????????????????????????????? There are 4 companies that have spent US$ 16 billion (Samsung, Alphabet, Volkswagen, and Microsoft), and Huawei spent US$ 14 billion (equivalent to Austria and slightly less than that spent by Israel).

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A recent study conducted by Arora et al. (2019) on ?????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? shows that productivity growth in the United States (US) has declined since the 1970s. In the long term, US competitiveness in innovation and its dominance in the world economy will decrease. This is quite surprising, considering that data from ??? ...

Interestingly, they argue that the lack of industry involvement in scientific research results in low application of existing discoveries. As an illustration, the scientific publications produced by DuPont's R&D unit in ??????????????????????????? ????????? ??????ℎ?????? ?????????????????????????????? ??????ℎ??? ...

The combination of shareholder pressure, intense competition, and a failure to gain public trust has led many companies to withdraw from investing in science. While in 1985, 30% of R&D was funded by industry, by 2015 it had fallen to just 20%. This was due to the stagnation of allocated funding, despite steady growth in the ????? ... (WIPO) shows a decline in US dominance in patents filed (as many as 5,401,401), losing out to China with 7,750,082 in the 2008-2017 period.

This condition shows the separation of roles between industry and higher education (HEI), where ??? ...
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(SET) to work more closely with industry, as is done by ????????????????????????????????? ??????????????? in ??? ... In the United States, it absorbed 12.40% (2018) with health expenditure reaching 17.90% (2017) of ??????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????. This is what makes investment in the health and biotechnology sectors grow and develop, and one of the potential markets targeted is Indonesia. Likewise, other developed countries make health a strategic sector.

On several occasions, the President emphasized the need for downstreaming of research and innovation produced by universities. This hope tends to be difficult to achieve because of the gap between research produced by universities and industry, and this begins with differences in the motives of the research conducted. The description above shows the importance of the role of industry for the nation's competitiveness and independence in the long term, by duplicating the SET program. Indirectly, Indonesian researchers in the past 3 months have conducted SET to address the nation's problems related to Covid-19.

For the government, attractive incentives need to be provided so that industries in Indonesia are interested in allocating ????&???? ????????????????????????, for example acceleration ???????????????????? ???????????????????????????????????? for industries conducting research and other incentives that can be provided. For PT, it is a must to allocate research topics that are highly relevant to industrial needs so that their utilization can be optimal. In addition, facilitating and appreciating researchers to actively collaborate with industry in applying their research results - the SET program is a crucial step.

We hope that the economic transformation initiated by the rise of innovation in the health sector can be followed by other strategic sectors, so that Indonesia can escape the ???????????????????????? ???????????????????????? ??????????????????, the vision promised by the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet. (bms)

Source: Opinion, Jawa Pos, June 11, 2020