Researchers call for simpler permit procedures

Researchers call for simpler permit procedures

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Researchers rebuffed the government's
insistence on retaining the bureaucratic procedures for research
permits in this era of reform.

They said the procedures, which sometimes needed up to a year,
were a waste of time and did not bode well with Indonesia's
ambition to become a technology powerhouse.

Muhadjir Darwin, researcher at the Center of Demographic
Studies of Gadjah Mada University and Mochammad Maksum, Director
of Gadjah Mada University's Center for Rural and Regional
Development Studies called on the government to dump the
regulations.

Darwin and Maksum pointed out that the regulations were no
longer suitable for present-day Indonesia because they were made
by the authoritarian New Order government.

"The complicated bureaucratic procedures needed to conduct
research should be dropped," said Darwin.

"In fact, we don't need such official permits at all to
conduct any scientific research in the country. Conducting
research is a public right. No one, including the government, has
the right to place any restrictions on it."

The government's policy on research permit came under public
scrutiny following the arrest of six German students conducting a
demographic research in a slum area in Central Jakarta last week
on the grounds they had no permit.

The complicated procedures apply to both local and foreign
researchers.

Darwin said the process did not cost that much money but it
involved complicated procedures that involved numerous
institutions. "It is exhausting and a waste of time."

As Darwin has experienced, it needs at least two weeks to
obtain a single letter of permit to conduct a research at a
single site in a single province. If more sites and provinces
were involved, the time needed to obtain the letter will be
longer.

For a single research at a single site, the researcher will
sometimes have to deal with no less than five institutions to
obtain the permit: the local village chief, sub-district
administration, police, military command and local planning
board.

The policy, legacy of the New Order regime, was initially
aimed at making sure that the research would not end up in
challenging state ideology or undermining state policy.

"So it is no longer needed now," Darwin said.

In reality, he said, the bureaucratic procedures were a mere
formality because the permit can be bought. Government
bureaucrats often do not read the research proposal. They just
stamp the proposal mechanically in return for money.

But clever researchers can easily fool the bureaucrat by not
specifying the subject matter they will study whenever it deals
with a "sensitive" issue.

"Now, what the government should do is to encourage scientists
to do more research, which it can use as input in policy making,"
Darwin said.

Mochammad Maksum also had lots of stories to tell about
procurement of research permits.

The role of the military was obvious when Maksum conducted a
research on a plantation in South Sumatra in 1992.

His team had all the necessary permits but officers from the
now defunct coordinating agency for national stability and
security (Bakortanas) in Jakarta ordered local authorities to
evict them from the research site.

He also had another story of a bureaucratic hurdle for
researchers, especially foreign researchers. He told about a
British scientist who conducted research last year after being
frustrated that his application for a permit had received no
response after months of waiting.

The British gentleman managed to get the permit days before
his three-month research was completed. Want to know how he did
his research? "He stayed in Kuala Lumpur and came occasionally to
Indonesia on a tourist visa," Maksum said.

"I don't know where exactly the difficulty in the process of
issuing a research permit lies, but I feel it has something to do
with security considerations. I don't think the complicated
bureaucracy for foreign researchers has a strong relation with
hidden motives such as money," Maksum said.

Helene van Klinken, resident director of the Australian
Consortium for in-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS), also did
not see the point of reestablishing restrictions for foreign
researchers as the New Order administration did.

"I still think that the restriction for conducting research
was only imposed by the New Order regime," she said, adding that
she did not encounter any problems with permits during her 18-
month stay in Indonesia.

Nevertheless, she suggested that Indonesia open its doors to
foreign researchers to improve the world's understanding of the
country.

In Australia, she said there were some Japanese researchers
who came to conduct research on an Aboriginal tribe. Some of the
Japanese even had better knowledge about the Aborigines than
Australians had.

Maksum concurred and said that in this era of globalization,
Indonesia should be more open to foreign researchers conducting
research in Indonesia.

This way, Indonesia would derive benefits from the research
conducted by foreigners. (23/swa)