Universitas Gadjah Mada was officially established on December 19, 1949 as a national university. Considered as one of the oldest universities in Indonesia, Universitas Gadjah Mada serves as a pillar of educational awakening in Indonesia, and purports to be a defender and disseminator of Pancasila. Universitas Gadjah Mada was born out of revolutionary struggle for independence of the Indonesian nation. Founded in the early period of independence, UGM was declared as the scientific and cultural centre for national higher education administration, it had only six faculties, namely, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, Faculty of Agriculture, and Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
In 1951 the construction of the Bulaksumur campus began and, entering the decade of 1960s, UGM already had facilities such as a hospital, a radio transmitter, and other facilities that supported student learning in addition to serving society's interests. Now Universitas Gadjah Mada has 18 Faculties, one Postgraduate School (S-2 and S-3), and one Vocational School. Universitas Gadjah Mada is one of the oldest universities in Indonesia, located at the Bulaksumur Yogyakarta Campus. Most of the faculties in the Universitas Gadjah Mada consist of several departments and study programmes. The academic activities of Universitas Gadjah Mada are expressed in the form of the cornerstones of Tri Dharma higher educational values consisting of Education and Teaching, Research, and Community Service.
The vision of UGM is to be an excellent and innovative world class university, imbued with nation’s cultural values based on Pancasila as the state ideology and dedicated to the nation’s interest and humanity.
The mission is to carry out education, research and community service, as well as preservation and development of knowledge, excellent and useful for society.
UGM students are provided with a vast array of opportunities to develop creativity and innovation in their realms through the support of modern infrastructure and information technology. As a world class research university, UGM has been paying a great attention to research activities by motivating faculty members, as well as students, to conduct and publish their research. This effort is invigorated through the development of 25 study centres in diverse scientific fields. UGM is equipped with resources of 3,608 faculty members and 4,324 employees, who are strongly committed to support UGM as the best university and the salient educational reference in Indonesia.
STEM Centre of Universitas Gadjah Mada
Since the establishment of the Centre for Academic Innovation and Studies (PIKA) in 2014, it was mainly PIKA, which has conducted teaching and learning activities at the university level (https://pika.ugm.ac.id/en/background/).)
The newly established STEM centre of UGM, which is under the Managemen the Faculty of Engineering, is included into the structure of Smart Green Learning Centre (SGLC) and Engineering Research and Innovation Centre (ERIC). The Head of SGLC is Muhammad Waziz Wildan, (PhD) and the Head of ERIC is Dr. Lukito Edi Nugroho.
Though there were no formal inauguration events due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, some activities related to STEM are already being held. Currently, most of the activities are conducted in the research group under ERIC. Actually, there are 8 main research topics under ERIC and one of them is Green Advanced Material. One of the research groups in Green Advanced Material is Unconventional Geo-resources Research Group (UGRG). The activities in the UGRG are reported as part of the STEM Centre/EASTEM’s activities (the Head of UGRG is Dr. Ferian Anggara).
Piloting of STEM Centre
SGLC and ERIC are seen as a “melting pot”, their activities are aimed at preservation of an ecosystem with seamless collaboration mechanism for R&D processes. Engineering Research and Innovation Centre (ERIC) is seen as an inter-department synergy hub that focuses more on integrating research resources, actors, and interests to produce research results with higher values for the recipients (industry, government, and community). ERIC is also seen as a platform for collaboration providing information about science and technology development, promoting the development and national competitiveness, end-to-end collaborated research as the driver for innovation. It is also focused on commercialization or real use of research products and integration with teaching and community services.
The UGM vision of these centres, regarding the STEM centre functioning, is as follows: SGLC and ERIC will act as the main hub, which will use an innovative approach for down streaming of education, as well as up streaming of the market, thus it is important to address the needs of both and develop a strategic plan to achieve and map out the necessary steps needed for the STEM activities to be successful.
Regarding the roles that the centres SGLC-ERIC play, SGLC provides a seamless forum for Faculty of Engineering to introduce (undergraduate) students to real-world user environment, so as to better understand the present day needs through closer interactions with industry. The activities include: various interaction modes (general lectures, joint projects, internship supervision, etc.); feedback mechanisms to ensure the relevance of the curricula (advisory boards, joint curriculum evaluation, etc.); support of technology (video conference, virtual & augmented reality, remote simulation, etc.). In the same spirit, ERIC provides a seamless environment for postgraduate students through various research-based activities.
More information about activities of SGLC and ERIC (as part of STEM Center in UGM) can be found at: https://ugrg.ft.ugm.ac.id/sglc-eric/sglc-eric-foe-ugm/
Staff development for STEM centre
Planning the staff development and training activities the main attention the university gives to the development and piloting of training module(s) for STEM Centre staff. The main topic of managerial staff training: Strategic Planning of STEM centre as part of SGLC-ERIC Development in UGM. This module is developed for both university STEM centre managers and operational (activities coordinators) staff, which should have the knowledge and understanding about the STEM education and experience in research and educational activities coordination.