Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) UGM was awarded a grant to implement World Class Professor (WCP) program. The WCP program is an innovation-based program initiated by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education. In its implementation, the program invites university professors from world-class universities to be placed as visiting professor at universities in Indonesia. In addition, the program also provides space for Indonesian researchers to visit the professors’ institutions to exchange ideas and produce knowledge production such as research and publications together. Besides aiming to improve the quality and quantity of publications in international journals, this program also aims to generate strengthening inter-institutional cooperation and encourage the formation of a global satellite research center. Utilizing the offered scheme, CESASS collaborated with Disaster Mitigation and Coastal Rehabilitation Center (PKMBRP) of Universitas Diponegoro and Center for Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation Studies of Universitas Syiah Kuala to form a consortium of WCP themed “Ecological Communication in Maritime Disaster Prevention in Asia Southeast.”
The WCP program has started with the introduction of Introductory Workshop in Semarang (02/08). On the occasion, Prof. Hermann Fritz from Georgia Institute of Technology USA, visiting professor for Universitas Syiah Kuala and representatives from each consortium member were present. Prior to Banda Aceh, Prof. Hermann Fritz visited the office of CESASS to be hospitable. Overall, the professors involved in the WCP consortium were Prof.Thomas Hanitzsch from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich (Germany), Prof.Judith Schlehe from Freiburg University (Germany), Prof.David Robie from Auckland University of Technologi (New Zealand) who would accompany researchers from CESASS and Prof.Magaly Koch from Tufts University (USA) who would accompany researchers from PKMBRP Universitas Diponegoro.
Some of the activities to be undertaken in the WCP program include sustainable workshops (workshop series), fine-tuning journal articles, joint-publication between researchers and professors with a target of 15 publications, research trips to professors, and international symposium on disasters maritime. For further achievements, it is also targeted to establish an inter-institutional cooperation framework to generate online databases related to maritime disaster in Southeast Asia. One of the WCP programs implemented by CESASS in the near future is the workshop “Academic Writing and Publication for Social Science” with Prof. Thomas Hanitzsch (16/08) at 5th floor of Auditorium of Graduate School UGM. (Meike)