BRIN Needs Political Support

Monday, May 24, 2021

After three years at the helm of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Laksana Tri Handoko is entrusted with a new job: to lead the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). The Japan-educated scientist is given a mandate by President Joko Widodo to integrate five major national research institutes. He is tasked to catch up lags in science and technology, to create technological independence and to focus on exploring the digital economy as well as green and blue economy. He would also continue his efforts which he initiated in LIPI to bring back a diaspora of Indonesian researchers to strengthen BRIN. Handoko said BRIN also needed political support to realize research as one of the main pillars of the national economy.

National Research and Innovation Agency Chair, Laksana Tri Handoko, posing with rocket models made by Indonesian researchers at the BBPT Building in Jakarta, May 11. Tempo/Tony Hartawan . tempo : 173055854620.

FOLLOWING his appointment as BRIN’s Chief on April 28, Laksana Handoko immediately set out to bring together the agencies. He met with the officials and employees to explain about BRIN which now serves as Indonesia’s only research agency. “Many asked. ‘What will happen to us now?’,” Handoko, 53, quoted during a special interview with Tempo at B.J. Habibie Building in Central Jakarta last Tuesday, May 11.

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