Dr. Artoto Arkundato, S.Si., M.Si., a lecturer from the Physics Department at FMIPA, received the “Top Collaborator” award for his work with BRIN (Indonesian National Research and Innovation Agency). The award certificate was presented to BRIN’s Laksana Tri Handoko, who also gave a public lecture on November 18th. The theme of the lecture was “Building a Smart and Character-driven Research Collaboration Ecosystem for Indonesia’s Golden Future.” The lecture was attended by Iwan Taruna, the Rector of Universitas Jember (UNEJ), along with BRIN officials who also presented various topics, including the Director of Talent Management, the Deputy for Research and Innovation Facilitation, the Manager of the Collaboration Platform, and the Director of Research and Innovation Funding.

During the event, BRIN also awarded recognition to the Rector of UNEJ for being among the top 24 collaborators out of 147 BRIN partners. In addition, 123 authors from Universitas Jember and 75 scholarly outputs were also recognized. Iwan Taruna, in his speech, encouraged lecturers to keep innovating in research through research groups. “We share the same focus on research with BRIN, so let’s continue to improve this collaboration, even with other government institutions,” he said. He emphasized that, besides the equipment available, UNEJ researchers can continue to innovate and seek funding not only from ministries but also from other agencies like BRIN.

Alongside Dr. Artoto, Prof. Ari Satia Nugraha, S.F., GDipSc., M.Sc-RES, Ph.D., a lecturer from the Faculty of Pharmacy, also received an award for having the most collaborations. Prof. Ari had 8 collaborations, while Dr. Artoto had 6 publications in collaboration with BRIN. BRIN also offered more opportunities for UNEJ lecturers to collaborate through their research groups, with several funding schemes available for research and innovation.

Dr. Artoto thanked BRIN for the recognition. “I appreciate the award from BRIN. This achievement will motivate me to continue collaborating in research,” he said. Dr. Artoto, who coordinates the Applied Materials and Energy Computational Research Group (KMTE), continues to encourage his team to collaborate on research and innovation, especially with BRIN. The event with BRIN took place in the auditorium of Universitas Jember and continued until the afternoon.