Minister Wants University Labs to Birth Global Industry Giants
Minister of Higher Education, Science, and Technology (Mendiktisaintek) Brian Yuliarto wants laboratories in higher education institutions and research agencies to not only produce publications and research products. He hopes laboratories in Indonesia can become the birthplace of technology-based companies whose products are in demand by the global market.
Brian stated that Indonesia needs to have a list of large companies born from the laboratories of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) or universities. According to him, the success of research must ultimately be translated into products and industries that have a broad impact.
"Perhaps beyond products that have a significant impact, we also want to give birth to or present a list of companies born from BRIN laboratories, born from university laboratories, whose products are then awaited by the entire world," Brian said at the Indonesia Innovator Award 2026 in Jakarta on Monday.
Brian reminded that a major challenge faced by Indonesian researchers is bringing research results past the critical phase of commercialisation. Many innovations are successfully developed in the laboratory but fail to penetrate the market and grow into an industry. In the world of innovation, this phase is often referred to as the ‘valley of death’. At this stage, an innovation must transform from a research result into a commercial product and subsequently develop into a company and an industry with a market.
"So many innovative products, but we have not yet succeeded in bringing them to industry," Brian said. According to him, the ability to cross the valley of death of innovation is crucial if Indonesia wants to make science one of the engines of economic growth. Research should not stop at technical success in the laboratory but must have an impact that can be felt by society.
He assessed that the path for Indonesia to leap forward into a developed country is not merely by mass-producing goods. Indonesia needs to build industries based on the mastery of high-level science and technology.