SPECIAL PANEL -- Scholars in Conversation with BRIN, AMINEF, and AIFIS || Research Collaboration in Indonesia: Navigating Policies, Permits and Partnerships

The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) in Indonesia is a non-ministerial government agency formed in 2019, responsible for the clearance of all research permitting in Indonesia. As new opportunities for institutional and individual research collaboration arise, so do questions from the global Indonesian Studies community about the process by which foreign and domestic researchers alike are to obtain government permissions for conducting research in Indonesia. In this roundtable we gather two representatives from BRIN alongside leaders from AIFIS and AMINEF to discuss the landscape of future collaborations with BRIN. We ask representatives from BRIN to engage with questions regarding research permitting in Indonesia as generated by a broad segment of the Indonesian Studies community in the US, followed by a public Q&A session with BRIN moderated by Alan Feinstein.

Themes and questions for discussion include:

I. Ethical clearance (Is it required in all cases, e.g., only involving human subjects? Can university IRB clearance be submitted to speed up process? Which committee is responsible for interdisciplinary research?);

II. Research permits and visas (Who vets the research proposals – e.g., same as TKPIPA in past, with intelligence agencies as well as scholars? Who approaches Immigration for visa – BRIN, applicant, or funder? Are certain topics or geographic areas off limits or is that covered under Ethical clearance? Do short-term research visits require research permits?)

III. Research results (Must all published results be co-authored? What about PhD student research? Primary data may contain sensitive information that should not ethically be shared or made public – how to protect? Can data be anonymized? How to protect others from using or publishing the original scholars’ data without permission?)

IV. New Directions in Collaboration (What new opportunities for individual and institutional collaboration are available under BRIN? How can intermediary organisations such as AMINEF and AIFIS, among many others, help to facilitate sustained and substantive research collaborations in partnership with BRIN?)

Speakers:
Tri Sundari, Acting Director of Management for Research Permits and Innovation and Scientific Authorities, BRIN
Dr. Fadjar I. Thufail, Director, Research Center for Area Studies, BRIN
Dr. Megan Hewitt, Executive Director, AIFIS

Moderator:
Alan Feinstein, Executive Director, AMINEF / Fulbright Indonesia