New opportunities were forged, and long-standing relationships strengthened in a recent visit to Indonesia. A delegation, led by Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, Professor Mike Shipman, visited Indonesia in July 2024. We expanded our global network and explored opportunities to strengthen our established connections and partnerships in the region.
Image above: MOU Signing Ceremony in BMKG by Professor Mike Shipman and Dr. Nelly Florida Riama (Head of Education and Training), witnessed by Mr. Summer Xia (British Council Director, Indonesia)
Our academic staff conduct innovative and impactful research to transform lives and make a difference, globally and locally: research to empower and inspire. Working with partners across the world is invaluable for many of our researchers. Our academics are actively involved in research with Indonesian partners in many fields including areas of volcanic caused pollution, flood management and social / psychological impact of natural hazards.
The visit follows a recent successful bid for the Badan Meteorologi, Klimatologi, dan Geofisika (BMKG) postgraduate scholarship fund which saw Durham becoming a partner in the programme.
This visit further strengthened the existing connections Durham had with Indonesia. We formalised with MOU and MOA signing ceremonies with Universitas Indonesia (UI), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) and Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR).
Image: The Durham delegation with the delegation from UGM
The team also engaged with regional partner institutions and national government agencies, confirming our commitment for long-term engagement in Indonesia.
BMKG
We are very pleased to have been successful in our bid to be part of the BMKG's Scholarship list of universities for their staff postgraduate scholarships. We officially signed the MOU as part of this visit.
BMKG is the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency of Indonesia, a non-departmental government body. It has over five thousand staff across 185 offices and weather observation stations. The BMKG Scholarship is a full scholarship for BMKG staff and scientists/researchers to study Master and PhD at overseas universities.
Being vulnerable to climate change and natural hazards, Indonesia needs aligned well to Durham's expertise in hazard and risk and sustainability research. The programme seeks to train BMKG staff to build resilient solutions to the worst effects of climate change.
We discussed how we can best support this scheme in UK and in Indonesia to fully achieve our mutual goals of providing the scholars with the expertise and qualifications they need to contribute towards the BMKG mission.
Partner organisations
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Our second visit to UGM saw us formalising the partnership between both universities. We signed an institutional-wide MOU and an MOA – Law for a collaboration in a bespoke LLB-LLM Fastrack Degree programme as well as an LLM Dual Degree programme. We are also looking forward to welcoming our first cohort of students on the IISMA Study Abroad programme this September 2024, which we were introduced to in our first visit to UGM.
Image above: Professor Mike Shipman with Professor Bruce Wardhaugh signing the MOA - Law Dual Degree with Universitas Indonesia
We formalised an institutional MoU last year with UI. We are now further strengthening our partnership, in Psychology and Law.
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Our visit to UNAIR was a first and we formalised the partnership between both of our universities.
Image left: MOU signing ceremony between Durham University and Universitas Airlangga which also saw the formalisation of a Dual Degree collaboration with the respective law schools.
Alumni engagement
This visit also included a number of alumni engagement meetings in the country with dinners in Yogyakarta and Jakarta and an alumni reception in Jakarta.
Durham has a global and lifelong network of over 230,000 alumni and supporters. We support and develop our alumni community across the world with a wide range of benefits, networks and learning opportunities. We are proud of their achievements and their sense of social purpose. We encourage them to help our wider community be the best it can be.
This visit gave the team a valuable opportunity for alumni engagement in Indonesia and marks the first time we have held a reception like this in Jakarta. We will be developing our wider Durham community further into the future.
