IRSA would like to congratulate the following recipients of the 2018 IRSA-Local Government Innovation Research Support:
- Saiful Mahdi (UnSyiah), Dian Rubianty (UIN Ar-Raniry) and Alja Yusnadi (UnSyiah): “Enterprising Gampong: The Roles of BKPG and Village Funding in Developing BUMDes in South Aceh, Indonesia.”
- Maria Silalahi (NTT Health Office) and Salut Muhidin (Macquarie U): “Innovative Program of the 2H2 Health Referral System in Flores Timur District, NTT Province, to Improve Maternal and Newborn Health.”
We received a very large number of applications and the selection processes have been highly competitive. We hence hope good quality of research outputs could come out from these research projects.
IRSA-Local Government Innovation Research Support on Local Government Innovation
Rationale
Despite nearly two decades of decentralization, inter-regional development disparity is still high and persistent. Moreover, intra-regional disparity reflected in the inequality between different groups of the population has reached a level unprecedented in Indonesian history. A root cause is unequal access to improvements in the quality of human resources, especially those related to skills improvement, through education, and the quality of public health. These services are the responsibility of the state, and have been decentralized to local government. In order to optimally exercise this decentralized function to improve development outcomes, regions and localities need to be innovative in the way they serve people, produce or encourage innovation, and produce innovative development actors and leaders.
In many cities and provinces in Indonesia, we are beginning to see innovative approaches to development, but this is still the exception. The understanding of conditions under which such innovations occur is empirically limited. We need evidence of lessons learned so success in certain areas can be replicated.
Research Support
As an initiative to increase knowledge about how and why such innovation occurs, IRSA and Local Government Innovation are supporting research in this area. The support is in the form of small research grants of Rp. 25,000,000 for any good quality research that potentially can produce new knowledge of local government innovation in Indonesia.
Research topics
Specific research topics can be, but are not limited to, the following:
- What environments could help to create innovation in the public service in the regions/localities?
- What are the impacts of innovations in the area of public services delivery in the regions/localities on development outcomes?
- Have democratization and decentralization produced innovative local/regional development actors, including political leaders, and if so, to what extent?
- To what extent do political leaders or public figures play a role in the innovation of public services delivery in the regions/localities?
- To what extent can bureaucracy be transformed to create innovation in public services delivery in the regions/localities?
- Are there any examples of best practice in the regions/localities related to local government innovations that can be replicated in other areas?
Who can apply?
Indonesian researchers in any science discipline who are willing to present their research findings at the 14th IRSA conference in Surakarta in July 2018.
Timelines
Announcement: 15 January 2018
Deadline of proposal submissions: 28 February 2018
Notification of the winner: 31 March 2018
Presentation of the findings: 23-24 July 2018
Final paper submissions: 31 August 2018
Submission
The proposal needs to be made via the following downloadable form and submitted via email to heriyaldi@fe.unpad.ac.id