USU PTN-BH Forum Seeks to Unlock Underused Campus Assets
Medan (ANTARA) – Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) is encouraging state-owned legal-entity universities (PTN-BH) to optimise underused assets to help fund strategic campus projects.
USU Rector Professor Muryanto Amin said universities, including USU, had assets with development potential that were not being used to their full capacity.
“Licensing issues and lengthy partnership processes make it difficult to realise a number of investment plans,” he said at the fourth U25 Leaders Forum of PTN-BH at the USU campus in Medan, North Sumatra, on Friday.
The forum, themed “Unlocking Funding Opportunities: Financing Strategies for PTN-BH Strategic Projects”, discussed asset development strategies and alternative sources of funding for universities.
“There are many idle assets on these campuses, and we have considerable experience in managing partnership systems, but the bureaucracy is still very lengthy,” he said.
He said he hoped governance and licensing procedures would be improved to make partnerships between universities and investors more efficient.
“This is what we need to offer input on, so the bureaucracy is not too lengthy and the calculations are economically reasonable for prospective investors,” he said.
He said discussions on financing strategic projects were part of the U25 Leaders Forum’s efforts to strengthen the independence and productivity of PTN-BH universities. Universities, he said, needed to find ways for their assets to generate economic benefits without compromising their core educational mission.
Meanwhile, U25 Leaders Forum chair and University of Indonesia (UI) Rector Professor Heri Hermansyah said the forum was beginning to prepare concrete steps to raise asset productivity and strengthen cooperation among PTN-BH universities.
He said a planned consortium would be supported by a working group tasked with defining its institutional structure and governance. Alongside the business consortium, U25 is preparing a second working group to strengthen academic recognition among PTN-BH universities.
The programme is intended to enable exchanges of students, lecturers and education staff between campuses, including through credit-transfer arrangements so that academic activities undertaken elsewhere are recognised by students’ home universities.
Professor Heri added that the cooperation was expected to give students opportunities to study at other campuses without always having to take part in exchange programmes abroad.
“Students at these universities will be able to grow together, helping to maintain the overall capacity of human resources across the PTN-BH network,” he said.
He said the forum was open to input from rectors, particularly on diversifying revenue sources and managing assets, so that universities would not rely solely on government funding.
“The ministry is also seeking to strengthen funding support through various schemes, including research funding,” he said.
The U25 Leaders Forum meeting at USU was its fourth since the forum began in October 2025.
In addition to financing strategic projects, this edition of the forum also discussed strengthening inclusive governance and preventing sexual violence, as well as developing assets and financial institutions within universities.