Govt help needed to promote technology development
Govt help needed to promote technology development
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia would continue to lag behind other countries in
high-tech innovation unless the government improved financial and
reward systems for researchers and technology users, a scientist
said.
Kurleni Ukar, a research head at the Indonesian Institute of
Sciences (LIPI), Kurleni Ukar, said difficulty in commercializing
local inventions was hampering the development of technology in
the country.
Entrepreneurs found it hard to raise funds for the purchase of
local inventions.
"One question that interested business people always ask is
whether new technologies meet banking requirements for a loan."
"As researchers, we have no idea what people from the banks
want. All we do know is that our research should benefit the
public and be registered at a patent directorate," Kurleni told
The Jakarta Post during a technology exhibition last week.
Kurleni said the government needed to encourage banks to give
loans to businesses to buy local technology.
Under Law No. 18/2002 on the national development of science
and technology, central and local governments were obliged to
promote the development of local technology, including allocating
budgets for technological research.
However, the funds allocated for this purpose were minimal,
she said.
"We can submit proposals to the Ministry (of Finance) asking
for money. It will take time before the proposals are approved.
And when we get them, the money is generally insufficient."
To make matters worse, all proceeds from commercialization of
the technology had to be given back to the ministry as a non-tax
income and were not credited back to successful researchers as
funding for new projects, she said.
Another obstacle to the development of local technology was
the government's reward system for scientists and academics,
Kurleni said.
Most of researchers in Indonesia were government employees.
They could get promotions if they taught at universities, wrote
scientific papers, or created patents for new technology.
However, most would rather write or teach for promotion as it
took longer to develop new technology and get it patented. The
patenting process alone took about three years, she said.
The badly enforced intellectual property laws were also
discouraging factors.
"Most scientists are not sure there is a reliable system to
protect their inventions from being pirated," Kurleni said.
Locally owned patents totaled 1,200, about 5 percent of the
total issued by the directorate of patents from 1997 to last
year. The remainder belonged to foreigners.
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand had higher numbers of locally
owned patents, she said.