Dr Sabrina Anjara (PhD, 2014) had an audience with the President of Indonesia, HE Joko Widodo, earlier this week at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta.
The President received a group of 35 representatives of “Inovator 4.0” network led by Cambridge alum Senator Budiman Sudjatmiko. The group presented their solutions to issues in Indonesian healthcare, education, economic growth and sustainable energy through innovative technology and creative investment models.
Sabrina was one of seven overseas-based Indonesian scientists who were flown home for the meeting. In the closed meeting, the President expressed his wishes for Indonesian diaspora (scholars and professionals living abroad) to contribute to research, innovation, and education in Indonesia.
Photograph: Sabrina with HE Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia.
In 2017, only 11.36% of university lecturers in Indonesia had a PhD and relatively few had a track record of publishing in international journals. Given the importance of mentorship and supervision for recent PhD graduates who remain in academia and hope to be world-class researchers, Sabrina pointed out that returning home is not currently an option for her.
The Indonesian government are setting up a National Research Council with an endowment of 6 trillion rupiah (circa £350 million). This will focus on identified research areas: food/agriculture, healthcare, information/communication technology, transportation, defence, renewable energy, maritime, disaster management, society/culture and education. The fund would be made available also to Indonesian academics based in universities abroad.
Sabrina did a PhD in Public Health and Primary Care at Queens' with the support of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She is now a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College Dublin.
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