Communication Department’s UII Designs a Strategy to Gain Higher Education Grants
On August 22, 2019 the Communication Department’s lecturer and staff held a coordination meeting to design a strategy to penetrate and gain the Direktorat RistekDikti (Riset Teknologi dan Pendidikan Tinggi) Research Technology and Higher Education (Ministry of Research and Higher Education) grant in the Communication Department Meeting Room. The lecturers prepared several proposed research titles. After that, the titles are discussed included the possibilities of what content or variables that have high popularity and novelty value. On this occasion the lecturers also discussed which title, or which phenomenon had a high probability of being able to penetrate the “Ristekdikti” or “Dikti” grant.
This meeting was a follow-up of the inputs received by the communication department from the BAN PT (National Accreditation Board) assessor. Previously, two BAN PT assessors, Prof. Hafid Cangara and Dr. Irwansyah has made a visit to assess the standards held by this department so far. At that time Dr. Irwansyah said that the campus with the amount of research with funds from Ristekdikti has a high quality weight in the accreditation assessment. Even if it is not included in the assessment, according to him, by getting the “DIKTI” grants for research, it means that the department has high credibility and quality and is nationally recognized. Because, it is quite difficult to receive a grant from DIKTI, difficult in terms of penetrating it, managing funds and also in terms of reporting.
The meeting tried to map out the important phenomena that often escaped our view, but were important and had never been studied and had great use value. Each lecturer at this meeting has prepared a proposal and discussed it one by one to be assessed, criticized, and commented upon given input for improvement or merely reinforcing. Each individual lecturer can also share resources, references, and connections to perfect the research plan that will be sent in order to receive the Dikti grant.
In addition, even without the Directorate of Higher Education (Dikti) grants, academic spaces in the research scheme have actually been directed as a habit at the Communication Department. Communication Department has had the habit of funding the research of its lecturers to support the research tradition and strengthen the academic clusters of its lecturers.
It is already known, Communication Department has six large clusters which are the focus of the study of each lecturer. These six clusters have made lecturers at UII’s Communication Department become reference for national and public solutions. These clusters also indirectly strengthen the expertise of the lecturers in Communication Department. The six clusters are Journalism, Public Relations, Empowerment Communication, Communication Policy and Regulation, Visual Communication, Environmental and Geography Communication.
Puji Rianto for example, he will strengthen himself in the expertise of Communication Regulation and Public Policy Studies in his research plan. Whereas Ratna Permata Sari and Sumekar Tanjung will duet to submit research ideas about popular cultural phenomena and gender in visual communication. Or you can also look at Holy Rafika’s research plan which in recent years has emphasized its expertise in spatial studies, mediation, and so on in terms of geographic communication.
