President Prabowo Admits Indonesia's R&D Investment Still Low, Vows Improvement

President Prabowo Subianto has admitted that Indonesia’s investment in Research and Development (R&D) is still very low. He stated that the government will strive to increase investment in the R&D sector going forward. “We must correct ourselves as a nation, our investment in Research and Development is very small, far from what it should be, this is our correction, and we will try to improve it in the future,” Prabowo said during a speech before 150 researchers from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta on Thursday. Prabowo cited Indonesia’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which remain relatively low compared to other countries. “We are below Thailand, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Vietnam,” he noted. The President emphasised that he will consistently work to improve the quality of education in Indonesia. On the same day, BRIN Head Arif Satria explained that the researchers would present their findings to help solve national problems. “We will present an overview from 12 clusters: food issues, food research, energy research, research to support our products for fishing villages, our products for the Free Nutritious Meal programme, as well as space research, aviation research, nuclear research, rare earth metal research, housing research, transportation research, and health research,” Arif said.