How Engaged Are Indonesian Universities? Redirecting Academia Based on Regional Innovation Systems

Abstraksi

The analysis of national innovation capability is increasingly informed by the field of regional studies (Uyarra et al, 2017). For Indonesia, economic and demographic diversity demand a multi-regional analysis of the national innovation ecosystem. For universities in particular, a more regional approach to innovation policy emphasizes what is now called the “Third Mission” of academia—supplementing the traditional missions of research and education with new responsibilities to support regional economic development (Laredo, 2007). For Indonesia, this builds on the existing “tri-dharma” (three services) of universities which traditionally has focused on community service, to include support for the regional innovation system. Experiences in other nations show how a university’s engagement with its regional innovation system must be customized to the features of that region, and the specific needs of the local economy in terms of workforce and innovation. Indonesian universities could use frameworks developed elsewhere as a starting point to understand how this Third Mission can be factored into institutional evaluations, especially since fulfilling that mission needs to be approached differently in each region. One approach is a structured “self-study” of economic engagement by universities, such as the “New Metrics Field Guide” developed in the U.S. by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU, 2014). We present case studies on how universities in the United States, Southeast Asia, and Latin America pursue this Third Mission, and discusses how tools like the New Metrics guide can help Indonesian universities to collect appropriate data measuring their contribution regional innovation.