Scientific productivity and the collaboration intensity of Indonesian universities and public R&D institutions: Are there dependencies on collaborative R&D with foreign institutions?

Scientific productivity of universities and public R&D institutions in Indonesia is considerably low, but a notable rate of increase has been observed since 2008. This may be associated with the implementation of new regulation to allocate at least 20 percent of national budget for education. Despite favorable government policy and financial incentives to encourage R&D collaboration among Indonesian universities and R&D institutions, there are still some constraints in managing and maintaining the collaboration. A low degree of collaboration among Indonesian researchers from different research organizations, as indicated by the number of co-authored papers, has been observed. On the other hand, Indonesian universities and public R&D institutions showed strong preference for collaboration with foreign institutions. Most articles published in peer-reviewed international journals were results of collaborative research, predominantly with foreign partners. Indonesian researchers at public R&D institutions indicated a higher degree of dependency with their foreign partners than academicians at universities.

► This research is a rare study of the performance of Indonesian R&D institutions. ► An increase in article published by Indonesian scientists has been observed since 2008. ► Regulation to allocate 20% of national budget for education has contributed to this increase. ► Indonesian R&D institutions prefer to collaborate with foreign institutions. ► Most of articles published were results of collaborative researches.