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Publish to earn incentives: how do Indonesian professors respond to the new policy?

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Abstract

In the early 2017, Indonesian government announced a new regulation no. 20/2017 which obliges Indonesian professors to publish certain amounts of articles to earn professional incentives. This study conducted semi-structured interviews with professors from two public universities in Indonesia in the summer 2017 to gather their perceptions on the new regulation. It was found that most interviewees accepted the legitimacy of the regulation but lamented its time frame, which they deemed too sudden and too short for those who do not have any publication; another concern argued by the professors was that the research support systems in Indonesia are not ready yet to help them in conducting meaningful research, and the last opinion was that the new regulation can be improved in its writing, implementing, and matched policy reform.

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Notes

  1. At the time when the regulation was established, DGHE was still under The Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. However, since 2014, to boost research productivity of Indonesia’s higher education, DGHE was joined by The Ministry of Research and Technology, becoming The Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of Indonesia.

  2. Nationally accredited journals mean journals which have been accredited by The Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education of Indonesia via arjuna.ristekdikti.go.id.

  3. Internationally indexed journals mean the journal which are indexed in reputable international citation index such as SSCI or Scopus.

  4. Perguruan Tinggi Negeri-Badan Hukum (PTN-BH) is a status given to several top state universities in Indonesia. By having this status, the institution has bigger autonomy in running their services and bigger freedom in generating funds, including research funding.

  5. Research assessment status classifies Indonesian higher education institutions into four clusters: mandiri, utama, madya, and binaan. These clusters regulate rights and responsibilities of the institutions in research, including research allocation funds. This assessment measures institution’s research resources (including research personnel, research facilities, funding), research management, research output (publications, patent), and revenue generating.

  6. Retrieved from Indonesia’s online science and technology index (SINTA), web-based research information system (http://sinta2.ristekdikti.go.id/).

  7. http://simlitabmas.ristekdikti.go.id/unduh_berkas/Buku%20Panduan%20Pelaksanaan%20Penelitian%20dan%20Pengabdian%20Kepada%20Masyarakat%20Edisi%20XI%20Tahun%202017.pdf

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    William Sandy & Hong Shen

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  1. William Sandy
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  2. Hong Shen
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Correspondence to Hong Shen.

Additional information

The first author: William Sandy, a PhD student

This project is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), project number 71273101.

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Sandy, W., Shen, H. Publish to earn incentives: how do Indonesian professors respond to the new policy?. High Educ 77, 247–263 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0271-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0271-0

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