[Unpad.ac.id, 29/02/2016] Indonesia’s research activities are lagging behind several countries in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. Based on SCImago Research data, Indonesia ranks 64th of 234 countries in the world in terms of research publications numbers. The data shows that out of 10 Indonesian lecturers only one person conducts research and scientific publications.
“Indonesia is a research paradise but ones who took advantage were not all Indonesian, “said Dicky Sofyan, S.IP., MPP., MA, PhD., researcher at Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICSR) Core Doctoral Faculty and Financial Development, as speaker at the seminar “Research Funding: How to Write Grant Proposal” in the seminar room Dean Building FISIP Campus Jatinangor, Monday (2/29).
Dicky said that diversity of research potential needed to be well anticipated by Indonesian researchers. According to him, competition, especially in the ASEAN region, is getting tougher. If research pattern and infrastructure remain stagnant, Dicky was pessimistic that Indonesia would be able to be in parallel with other ASEAN countries.
One of research building infrastructure is the development of Research Based Learning (RBL). According to Dicky, it’s about time that RBL is applied in educational courses. “Graduate program should be no longer using text books; text books only support supplying definition, categorizing, and typology,” explained a member of Education Exchange Committee (EEC) The American Indonesian Exchange Foundation (AMINEF).
Furthermore Dicky said that graduate lecturers should begin disseminating their research results to students, including why the study was conducted, as well as theoretical implications obtained by the lecturers as supporting material.
“Therefore, if your professors still teach with textbook, it means that they are not performing any research,” said Dicky.
In relation to research theme, Dicky advised researchers to conduct research that was breaking the common sense (using counter intuitive thinking). This activity required researchers ability to critically analyze problem instead of just starting from multiple viewpoints. Admittedly, an interesting research is research that cannot be predicted.*
Reported Arief Maulana / eh
