New chairman vows to revive LIPI
New chairman vows to revive LIPI
By Wisnu Pramudya
BANDUNG (JP): Soefjan Tsauri, the new chairman of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), moves into his new office with the classic problem of low pay for his research staff.
So what else is new? One might ask.
Nothing, but the problem is now so pressing that something has got to be done soon.
Something will be done, assured Soefjan. He's got a strong reason to be concerned.
LIPI is supposed to be the country's academic center of excellence. In recent years, however, LIPI has not only failed to attract the best university graduates but has also been suffering a serious "brain drain".
The best university graduates are shunning academic life and opting to work at private companies where salaries are much higher.
Between 1987 and 1992, more than 170 researchers abandoned LIPI for some private institutions citing poor pay. In 1992, the monthly salary of the lowest ranking researcher was Rp 60,000 ($31) per month, while senior researchers received Rp 250,000.
Soefjan, a chemist by training, has put the salary issue at the top of his agenda as he gets down to the business of leading LIPI.
"It's so simple. People work because they want to improve their welfare and increase their self-esteem," he told The Jakarta Post. "Adequate take-home pay would automatically help solve other problems at LIPI."
As a state agency, LIPI staff researchers have to follow the civil service pay scale. And the government this year has only granted a 10% raise in pay across the board.
In the face of major defections, Soefjan, 53, is now talking about putting LIPI "on the market". Though privatization is now being considered by a number of government agencies, Soefjan plans to take a different approach by making LIPI's research programs more "market-oriented".
Two plans were drawn up during the chairmanship of his predecessor, Samaun Samadikun, that aim to bring the institution a badly-needed cash infusion.
LIPI is banking on the Riset Unggulan Terpadu (integrated top research program) and the Riset Unggulan Kemitraan (Partnership Research Program) to attract the attention of big business. The programs are designed to provide research in areas that will have more immediate applications by cooperating with the industries themselves.
Under the programs that started last year, LIPI proposes research projects to private companies, which are then expected to share in the costs. The government will provide Rp 2 billion ($870,000) for every research project, and the private sector will foot the rest of the bill.
"The essence of every cooperation is trust and benefit," Soefjan said. "I hope LIPI will appear as a bona fide institution and attract private sector's cooperation."
Soefjan was involved in the preparation of the plans at the behest of Samaun.
The chief problem with LIPI and other research institutions in Indonesia, they found, lied in the fact that only 20 percent of all research programs conducted in the country were applied in industries. The other 80 percent were studies that had no immediate application whatsoever.
Another problem is that research and development is not high on the list of priorities of either the government, or private companies.
Indonesia allocates only 0.3 percent of its Gross Domestic Product for research and development. In contrast, Singapore allocates 1.1 percent of its GDP and the United States 3 percent.
Soefjan believes the two research strategies, given the chance, LIPI could make research programs more marketable and profitable. This would begin to allow LIPI to solve its other problems while helping the country's research sector out of the doldrums.
The two plans, however, have not lived up to their promise. "We haven't been evaluating and monitoring the plans well," Soefjan confessed. "That's our weakness."
LIPI is not a complete novice in industrially-applied research.
The institution used to manage the National Electronics Institute (LEN) which, with a Rp 1 billion budget, handled Rp 20 billion worth of projects in the fields of satellite and telecommunications.
Its very success led to the government's decision to hand over the management of LEN to the Agency for Development of Strategic Industries, chaired by Minister of Research and Technology B.J. Habibie. The name of the electronics institute has since been changed to PT LEN Industri.
LIPI holds no grudges that one of its more successful units has been taken over and sees it in "terms of national interest," Soefjan said.
Soefjan, a father of three daughters, is from the northern coastal town of Gresik in East Java. He graduated from the Bandung Institute of Technology in 1969.
He obtained his masters degree from Macquire University, Australia, in 1972 and his doctorate degree at ITB in 1985.
Joining LIPI in 1972 as an assistant researcher, he is the first chairman who comes from within the institute. His predecessors were all picked from universities.
In contrast to Samaun, who focused primarily on biotechnology and research on the transfer of embryo and tissue culture, Soefjan has no particular bias.
"I want to see the institute to develop KISS," he said, referring to the Indonesian acronym for koordinasi, integrasi, sinkronisasi, and simplifikasi (coordination, integration, synchronization and simplification).
"Every component of this republic should move together, with KISS, so that every goal can be reached in the most efficient manner possible," he said.
He proposed a "performance audit" to evaluate how state institutions plan and utilize their budgets to determine if the institutions perform effectively.
On LIPI's independence, Soefjan likened the institution to a musical instrument. "As a piano, for instance, LIPI has to play its own tune and improvise, but it has to play in harmony with the other instruments," he said.
He also spoke of the research that needs to be done in the areas of Pancasila, the Constitution and the Broad Guidelines of State Policies.
"With the three pillars, there's no doubt that religion should be the base of all activities, including research."
A deeply religious man, Soefjan deplored what he called the "allergy" of western countries to the integration of science and technology with religious concepts of faith.
"They're just unable to reconcile the two," he said. "For someone with strong faith, there shouldn't be a problem. After all, God created science for human beings."