Prabowo Urges Universities to Collaborate Across Disciplines

President Prabowo Subianto has stressed the importance of the role of higher education in addressing the nation’s various problems through cross-disciplinary collaboration. This was conveyed during the closing series of the National Symposium on the 2026 Science, Technology, and Industry Convention. Minister of State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi stated that the President considers university leaders such as rectors, deans, and professors to be the best intellectual group the nation possesses. According to him, Prabowo views that the strength of academics must be gathered to work together towards one national goal, namely solving various national challenges collectively. “The deans, professors, rectors are the smartest individuals a nation has. And from that, of course, he is of the view that in order to solve all of our nation’s problems that we are currently facing, he wants to invite the entire academic community to come together,” said Prasetyo on Sunday (28/6). He explained that Prabowo encourages every individual with their respective expertise to contribute maximally, yet still within a large, integrated national framework. According to Prasetyo, Prabowo wants to ensure that intellectual strength does not operate in silos, but rather complements each other to produce more effective solutions for the nation’s problems. “Individuals who have expertise in their respective fields, let us work together to mutually bring out our best abilities in our respective fields, but within one national framework,” he said. Prasetyo added that on the occasion, Prabowo also again provided direction and views to the symposium participants, which he considered to be full of new ideas for the development of national science and technology.